Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

203. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if consideration will be given by her Department to instituting a similar support mechanism to the live performance restart grant scheme for those whose turnover was below €100,000 and thus were unable to qualify for the scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35698/22]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

In December, following Budget 2022, I was pleased to announce details of another €50m suite of measures to support the live performance sector in 2022.  The funding has provided for the following schemes:

- Live Performance Supports Scheme - LPSS 3, was launched to support events which were due to be staged in December 2021 and January 2022 and were curtailed, cancelled or rescheduled due to the restrictions on audience capacity.  Grants of over €9.5m have been offered under LPSS 3.

- Grants of €2.9m have also been offered under the LPSS Strand II, which is aimed at pantomimes and seasonal musical theatre impacted by the Covid restrictions which applied in December and January.

- The Live Performance Restart Grant Scheme (LPRGS) launched in March to provide a new grant for businesses engaged in staging live events in the arts and culture live performance sector. This scheme will support the live entertainment sector by providing business re-start grants to de-risk the planning of events across spring and summer of 2022 and to assist with the costs of reopening. Grants of €14.7m have been offered under LPRGS to date. 

- €1m was provided to support the St Patrick’s Festival.

- The Local Live Public Performance Scheme (LLPPS) Phase 3 has provided funding of €5m to Local Authorities to support local live events.  These events will continue to run until the end of June this year.  Given the success of the scheme I recently allocated a further €5m to the local authorities to provide for live events until Halloween. 

In relation to smaller businesses i.e. with turnover less than €100,000, the Music and Entertainment Business Assistance Scheme (MEBAS) 2022 was also launched earlier this year as part of a suite of measures I put in place to support the live entertainment sector.  MEBAS 2022 is a targeted support for self-employed performers and sole traders with a VAT exclusive turnover of €15,000 or over operating solely in the live entertainment sector who did not qualify for other business supports such as CRSS and who were significantly impacted by restrictions introduced to combat the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.  To date, over €2.27m has been paid under this scheme.

The funding delivered through this suite of supports I believe has been essential to help underpin the recovery of the sector post pandemic.  I am pleased to see that hundreds of events and gigs are happening across the country and with the worst of the pandemic now behind us, artists, crews and event producers and promoters are back to doing what they do best.