Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

The evidence is absolutely clear. As Minister said earlier, the headline from the cost benefit analysis is that society received a benefit of €1.39 for every euro spent on this scheme. The Minister said that he is in favour of this being made permanent, I think, or at least being continued. Does he agree that it should be massively expanded? Just over 8,000 artists applied to this pilot but only 2,000 were selected. It was not a merit-based selection process but instead a lottery. There are another 6,000 artists out there who wanted to participate and contribute in this way. They were not able to because of the limited funds available for the scheme.

Imagine if only one in four workers got paid for their work on the basis of a lottery every three years or only in four eligible applicants received job seeker’s payments. Does the Minister agree that the scheme needs to be expanded so that all artists who want to participate and meet the criteria can do so?

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