Written answers
Thursday, 20 April 2023
Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection
Social Welfare Benefits
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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297. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of people currently in receipt of professional artists on jobseeker’s allowance; and to provide a yearly breakdown of the number of people who have received the allowance since the scheme was made permanent in September 2019. [18819/23]
Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Professional Artists on Jobseeker’s Allowance is a scheme to support you if you are a self-employed professional artist and you are getting Jobseeker's Allowance. When you are being assessed for this scheme, you will be means tested as a self-employed person.
If you qualify, you do not have to take part in the department’s activation programme for one year. This allows you to focus on your artistic work for one year.
At the end of March 2023, there were 80 Professional Artists on Jobseeker’s Allowance. The number of Professional Artists on Jobseeker's Allowance as at 31st December for the years 2019 to 2022 is shown in the table below.
Table 1: The number of Professional Artists on Jobseeker's Allowance, by year
| Year | Recipients |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 99 |
| 2020 | 94 |
| 2021 | 82 |
| 2022 | 86 |
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