Written answers
Tuesday, 20 October 2020
Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht
Covid-19 Pandemic
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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255. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if her Department will work with the arts, entertainment and events community to help, financially and logistically establish socially distant concerts as Ireland lives with Covid-19 for the foreseeable future. [31024/20]
Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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The 'Resilience and Recovery Plan for Living with COVID-19' is a cross-government approach to managing the pandemic for the coming months. It sets out a framework on managing and living with COVID-19 and includes restrictive measures to help us to go about our daily lives as much as possible, while managing the virus. The framework sets out five levels of response, each with a number of measures designed to help us all lower COVID-19 transmission and setting out what is permitted at that moment in time
One of the Government's priorities is to keep schools and childcare services open, while keeping people safe. Concerts are classified as indoor and outdoor events under the Plan and are not permitted under Level 5 as no organised indoor gatherings should take place.
It is hoped that the country will move from Level 5 in due course. In the interim, the Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce, which I appointed, is expected to report. This Report should inform the Government's future decision making around live performance and concerts.
In Budget 2021, the Government announced the provision of support for live entertainment in the amount of €50m. This will include measures for the commercial entertainment sector and will support live entertainment across the country. It will be informed by this year's pilot live performance scheme which was introduced as part of the July Stimulus. There will be further supports for music, building on the phenomenal demand for support, also under the July stimulus, for the Music Scheme operated by First Music Contact. A scheme of capital grants for equipment will also operate in 2021. Combined with measures announced by the Minister for Finance, this will provide additional supports to a sector severely impacted by COVID-19. Officials in my Department will engage with the sector on the detail of how these new supports will operate, and I hope also to announce the recipients of the pilot scheme shortly.
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