Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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38. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the efforts that are being undertaken to provide general solutions which will help with costs in the arts sector; and the investigation her Department has made into specific measures to alleviate the costs for the arts sector. [47793/21]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Primary support for the arts, including support for a wide range of cultural venues, is delivered by the Arts Council. In 2021, the Government allocated €130m to the Arts Council which is an increase of 62% over the amount initially allocated for 2020. The Arts Council is independent in its funding decisions under the Arts Act 2003. The Arts Council announced details of its investment plans last February and this included a range of initiatives aimed at supporting artists and arts organisations.

From the outset of the COVID-19 crisis, the Arts Council adopted a pro-active approach to supporting individual artists of all genres as well as arts and culture organisations. One of the Council's first actions was its announcement to honour all existing funding commitments, pre-funding grantees up to 90% of funding to assist with commitments, especially to artists. Since then, the Arts Council have also introduced new and enhanced funding programmes. Further information of these investments can be accessed on the Arts Council’s website.

In 2021, I allocated €50 million for a suite of measures to assist the live performance sector aimed at supporting employment and wellbeing opportunities across all genres and the continued production of high quality artistic output for the public. Included in this package are the following measures:

- Grants amounting to €25m under the 2021 Live Performance Support Scheme, in addition to €5m in 2020.

- €14m has been made available for the Music and Entertainment Business Assistance Scheme (MEBAS) to make a contribution to the overheads of businesses, specifically musicians and related crew, that have been negatively affected by COVID-19 and that do not qualify for other business supports. This Scheme is a demand led scheme a second round is opening shortly.

- An allocation of €5 million was provided to local authorities for live performances in summer 2021 to animate town centres, should public health considerations permit.

- Up to €1 million was allocated to the St Patrick's Festival 2021 for programming and it supported over 3,500 days of employment for performers, producers, artists, technicians, creatives and support staff.

- €11.5m was provided for the entertainment industry, including festivals.

In addition, the Government's horizontal payments were available to the arts sector including the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme and the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.