I have been very cognisant of the fact that the arts and culture sectors have been amongst the hardest hit by the necessary restrictions required to deal with COVID-19. I and my officials have been in regular and ongoing communication with stakeholders over the past 15 months to fully understand the challenges posed by COVID-19. I established a number of taskforces and consultative stakeholder fora to ensure that the most up to date information is available to me about the difficulties facing the sector. This includes:
- The Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce;
- The Night-time Economy Recovery taskforce;
- The Live Entertainment Working Group, and;
- The Life Worth Living Oversight Group.
In addition, my Department has engaged with a wide range of stakeholders including the Arts Council and other bodies under its aegis, advocacy groups such as the National Campaign for the Arts, resource organisations, individual artists and art practices, as well as representative groups, businesses and individuals in the entertainment and events sectors. This engagement with stakeholders was essential to the record allocation I secured for the arts and culture sector as part of Budget 2021 including €50m in supports for live entertainment and €130m in funding for the Arts Council.
The Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce report Life Worth Living , was published in November 2020 and made ten recommendations to support the recovery and resilience of the sector. My Department has been working with stakeholders to implement those recommendations and the Oversight Group I recently established will examine how the outstanding recommendations can be resolved.
I intend to continue this stakeholder engagement as we progress towards the reopening and recovery of the arts, culture and live entertainment sectors.
