Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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The Central Statistics Office collates data on the numbers of people working in different occupations, sourced from different national surveys . While there are not currently any surveys conducted that ask if an individual is working as an artist, a number of different figures are reported relating to the numbers of people working in related areas.

The Labour Force Survey publication, which is the official source for employment statistics, provides data on the following groups:

• The number of persons aged 15 years and over in Employment (ILO) in the following detailed occupation groups:
• Artistic, literary and media (21,700 in Q4 2023 )
• Design (10,200 in Q4 2023 )
• The number of persons aged 15 years and over in Employment (ILO) in the creative, arts and entertainment activities (14,300 in Q4 2023 )

The Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data Sources, provides an estimate of the number of employees using Revenue's PAYE Modernisation as the data source and contains monthly estimates of the number of employees in the “Cultural and creative industries” (including selected printing, publishing, recording, broadcasting, creative and cultural services).

The most recent figure published is of 36,900 seasonally adjusted people employed in February 2024 . However, the Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data Sources does not include self-employed individuals, which would be the case for many artists.

The Department will continue to engage with the CSO on matters relating to the measurement of artistic activity in Ireland, as the availability of relevant, accurate and timely data is important for the development and appraisal of policy in this area.