Vol. 1021 No. 5
1. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media if she will outline her Department’s strategy to tackle cyberbullying and harassment, particularly of children; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22104/22]
The Minister, Deputy Martin, sends her apologies. She has a bereavement in her family and cannot be here this morning.
Recruitment continues to be a significant challenge for the tourism sector, with up to two thirds of businesses reporting reduced capacity due to staff shortages. My Department and Fáilte Ireland have been collaborating with industry and other Departments to ensure there is a co-ordinated approach to addressing the labour and skills shortages. In February 2022 Fáilte Ireland published its most comprehensive research to date on the tourism and hospitality labour market. This robust and wide-ranging research programme covered the views of 1,000 employers and 3,500 workers with tourism and hospitality experience as well as international benchmarking and a review of education provision and consultation with recruitment agencies. This research is shaping Fáilte Ireland's work programmes this year to provide support to the industry. Fáilte Ireland's work includes supporting businesses to work together to drive the long-term repositioning of the sector as an appealing and rewarding career choice and workplace, helping to build the capability of individual employees to assist businesses to bridge the skills gaps they are experiencing and also driving greater employer attention by improving the quality of training across the business.
Fáilte Ireland also chairs the tourism and hospitality careers oversight group, which continues to work closely with industry bodies, education providers and other Government bodies to support sustainable employment in the tourism sector with an immediate focus on recruitment and retention initiatives, as well as focusing on the long-term repositioning of the industry as a career choice.
My Department and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science are both represented on the career oversight group. Officials from my Department also participate in the inter-departmental group on work permits chaired by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The work of the group resulted in up to 350 work permits being granted for managerial positions in certain tourism and hospitality businesses. Last year my Department also successfully advocated for the prioritisation of chef permit applications, that is, engaging with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with regard to different permits now required. My Department and Fáilte Ireland will continue to engage with and provide support to the tourism sector through these challenging times.
The situation is so bad now that some restaurants and pubs have to close early or are having to close a few days a week to cope with the shortage. The shortage of chefs is particularly acute. The Minister of State mentioned Fáilte Ireland's tourism careers research. That showed that there is currently a shortage of 40,000 workers in the tourism and hospitality sector, and 30% of businesses that were surveyed in 2021 said that they faced closure if recruitment challenges are not resolved. Given the very difficult past two years that the businesses in this sector have had, this is making things much harder for them at a time when they should be firing on all cylinders. Would the Minister of State agree that his Government should lead on this and increase the minimum wage to a living wage?
Fáilte Ireland is working hand in glove with key sectoral bodies on the tourism and hospitality oversight group, which is pivoted to focus on supporting the industry to address some of its immediate recruitment challenges in the months ahead. Obviously, matters relating to wage rates are set by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and we are working with the Department as part of the career oversight group. The current staffing and skills shortages in the tourism sector are unprecedented. However, staffing shortages are not just a problem in the tourism sector. There are many sectors in the Irish economy facing this same change. Tourism around the world is also experiencing it. The loss of skilled workers and the difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff is undoubtedly one of the greatest barriers to the sector's recovery from the pandemic. Even before Covid, the tourism industry faced a particular set of employment challenges in attracting and retaining workers. The closure of the sector exacerbated those challenges. Fáilte Ireland estimates that there are more than 40,000 vacancies in the industry across all roles, with almost a quarter estimated at management level. As I said, every piece of work now with Fáilte Ireland is being occupied with trying to work within that oversight group to meet the unprecedented challenges in the months ahead.
It is not up to Fáilte Ireland to solve this problem. I asked what the Minister of State's opinion was on the Government increasing the minimum wage to a living wage for workers in the sector. Retention is equally as much a problem along with recruitment. According, again, to Fáilte Ireland's research, one in three workers in the sector was new to tourism and hospitality, and 42% of workers in the sector who are on the PUP did not return to their employers. Does the Minister of State think there is a case where employers improved pay conditions that they might be able to manage and to improve retention levels? Everyone in the sector understands that there are unsociable hours, but when you have people working very long hours, when they are sometimes denied breaks and having to work split shifts on a wage on which they just cannot afford to live, bearing in mind there is a cost-of-living crisis and a rental crisis and people simply cannot afford to work. Also, the sector is very vulnerable because the trade unions are not organised in the sector. Given that he has not answered the question about his Government's opinion on increasing the minimum wage to a living wage, what is his opinion on the role of employers in improving conditions to retain staff in the sector?
I refer to the long-term retention of employees in the industry. That is why Fáilte Ireland is developing an excellent employer programme to showcase good employers across the industry and to help businesses improve their employer practices and reputation.
The programme aims to reposition the industry as an appealing and rewarding place to work which can attract and retain talent. Participating businesses will have access to people management training for their teams, employee surveys and a range of bespoke business supports as well as the opportunity to become a certified top employer thereby enhancing their employer brand and supporting their recruitment and retention.
Fáilte Ireland is also working through a recruitment awareness campaign to drive the awareness of a variety of roles available and it is launching a multiplatform recruitment campaign with an allocation of €600,000 to promote the unique benefits of working in the industry targeting people from the ages of 16 to 60.
On Deputy Munster's general question, as the Deputy will be aware, the matters around the living wage and the minimum wage are being led by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Deputy will have opportunities to engage with the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, on that but the Government has followed through on the independent wage commission's report, which was published last year.
2. Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media the changes she will make to the basic income for the arts pilot scheme to ensure that recipients of the disability pension will have their disability supports protected if successful in qualifying for the pilot; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22099/22]
5. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media if she will work with the Minister for Social Protection to ensure that payments to artists with disabilities will be protected as the basic income for artists scheme is rolled out; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22552/22]
In relation to the welcome basic income scheme for those in the arts, those in receipt of disability supports are concerned that if they avail of this scheme they will lose supports that are currently available to them. Will the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, shed some light on that for me?
I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 and 5 together.
I thank Deputies Ó Ríordáin and Boyd Barrett for their questions. Eligibility for social welfare supports, as the Deputies will be aware, is a matter for the Minister for Social Protection and neither I nor the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, have any statutory functions in that regard.
However, I can assure the Deputy that the issue of disabled artists participating in the basic income scheme it is a matter which the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, takes very seriously. The Minister wants to ensure that all artists, including those with a disability, can apply to participate in the pilot.
The basic income for the arts is a sectoral support for the arts to give recognition to the intrinsic value of the arts to Irish society and to place a value on the often unpaid work that is undertaken in order to develop an arts practice required to produce the art we all as a society enjoy and benefit from.
Stakeholder engagement has been core to the policy development process for the basic income for the arts and this included a stakeholder forum on 15 December 2021, which over 150 people attended, representing 50 resource organisations and representative organisations, including disabled artists and representatives from Arts and Disability Ireland. In addition, the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, held a public consultation throughout the month of January and the impact of such a scheme on artists with disabilities was a theme which was raised throughout the consultation.
As the Deputies will be aware, the basic income for the arts pilot scheme was the number one recommendation of the Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce, which the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, established to make recommendations to ensure that the arts and culture sector would recover fully after Covid and thrive post pandemic. The Department of Social Protection was a member of the oversight group the Minister established last year tasked with appraising the recommendations set out in the Life Worth Living report, including on the manner in which the basic income for the arts pilot should be implemented.
In addition, bilateral engagement between the two Departments on the treatment of the basic income for the arts payment has been ongoing over the past number of months, in particular, discussions around the treatment of the grant payment for the purposes of income disregards across a number of social welfare schemes, including disability allowance.
I can assure the Deputies that the issue of artists with disabilities is something which the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, is focused on. The Minister believes that the basic income for the arts has the potential to help artists and creative arts workers, including those with disabilities, to overcome labour market barriers by creating a self-sustaining creative practice, operating on a self-employed basis.
As the Deputy will be aware, the pilot scheme is a three-year research programme to examine the impact a basic income-style payment could have on artists and creative arts workers and their creative practice. A key research question will be the impact such a payment could have on artists with disabilities. To that end, the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, was determined since the outset of the pilot scheme that artists with disabilities would be in a position to participate in the scheme to the greatest extent possible within the legislative framework to ensure the research captured the experience of disabled artists.
Accordingly, as I mentioned already, the Department has worked with the Department of Social Protection, to establish that the payment will be treated as earnings from self-employment and can be taken into account in earnings disregards that apply to many social welfare payments, including disability allowance and the one-parent family payment. That means that the basic income for the arts will be treated like any other income a person on social welfare earns from employment.
In the case of the disability allowance, it will be possible for many people to avail of the basic income and retain social welfare benefits in addition to the moneys received from the pilot scheme. Of course, each individual case will differ depending on other household income.
The actual impact of the basic income on a person's welfare entitlements will depend on each individual’s circumstances and applicants will need to engage with the Department of Social Protection on the matter.
The Department of Social Protection published a guide to the interaction of the basic income for the arts pilot scheme with Department of Social Protection payments, www.gov.ie/en/publication/bd818-interaction-of-the-basic-income-for-the-arts-pilot-scheme-with-dsp-payments, on Gov.ie on 13 April to assist all applicants in receipt of Department of Social Protection supports, including those with disabilities.
The Department of Social Protection has also undertaken to engage directly with disabled artists who are selected for the pilot to help them understand the impact accepting the payment would have in their individual circumstances.
The Department has met with representatives from the disabled artists community to examine how best we can make artists aware of the position established between my Department and the Department of Social Protection in respect of supports and the treatment of the basic income for the purposes of income disregards. My Department also has a dedicated email address to answer any questions that applicants may have about any aspect of the scheme to assist artists and creative arts workers with queries about the pilot.
I thank the Minister of State. I am intrigued by that response. It is quite comprehensive. As the Minister of State was going through it, I was not sure whether we were going to a space where the Minister was working on it. Towards the end of the response, it appeared the Minister of State outlined the Minister is aware of the issue and is working on it but he seemed to indicate that there is not an issue. However, there may be individual cases which the grand sweep of what the Minister is trying to achieve will not cover. I ask the Minister of State to outline to the House that somebody in receipt of disability support will be classed as a self-employed person and on that basis, he or she should not have any concerns about losing whatever supports he or she has.
As the Minister of State can appreciate, the arts are about giving license to those who have tensions within their lives to express them and if we are excluding those with disabilities from this scheme, then that will be a major disadvantage, not only for them but for the wider Irish society. I am intrigued to get more detail on the Minister of State's response. It appears to be welcome.
Obviously, the Minister is aware of the issue. I say, "Well done", to the Music and Entertainment Association of Ireland, MEAI, among others, for campaigning on this. However, it is worth saying, on the task force that was looking into the basic income project, there was no representative of people with disabilities and we need to be absolutely certain that there is not a disincentive for people with disabilities to sign up for the basic income pilot. Certainly, on the calculations the MEAI has done, there is potential for them to lose in some cases the medical card and for a failure to take into account that people with disability carry additional costs to those who do not have disabilities. An Indecon report recently estimated there is €10,000 a year additional costs if one has a disability. Whereas somebody who does not have a disability will get 100% of the benefit of everything over previous social welfare basic payments, the people with disability could see much of that additional money eaten up by what they lose when they take up the payment.
I thank both Deputies for the questions.
To respond to Deputy Boyd Barrett, I am informed that there were 150 people at the stakeholder forum, representing 50 resource organisations and representative organisations, including representatives from Arts and Disability Ireland.
Similar to all income, the payment will be reckonable for the purpose of social welfare means tests. Whether a person's social protection payment will be impacted or not will depend on his or her individual circumstances. However, many of the income supports provided by the Department of Social Protection include income disregards to encourage people to work.
The Department of Social Protection has undertaken to engage directly with disabled artists who are selected for the pilot scheme to deal with and address their individual circumstances. As I said earlier, the impact that income from the basic income pilot scheme will have on a person's disability allowance payment, for example, will depend on each person. There is no definite consequence. I am aware of the concern that exists in the broader community, as the Deputy mentioned, but perhaps I can go into more detail about it in a later reply.
This scheme in general is extremely welcome. There will always be issues, but this is a big one if one is a person with a disability and one is expressing oneself through artistic means and one may be locked out of the scheme. What I am hearing from the Minister of State is that he is aware of this, that he is meeting and engaging, that he is engaging with the Department and that this is going to be resolved both on a wide basis and on an individual basis. If that is the case, those who are listening to this debate will be comforted by that. I want to be absolutely clear that this issue has been recognised, that the Minister is aware of it and is working it out with the Department and those who represent artists with disabilities and that it will be resolved on a project basis and on an individual basis.
Unless it is addressed, people on disability payments or blind payments could potentially lose up to €90 of their payments. Inevitably when one is getting a higher payment as one would on the basic income, it is going to impact on other payments. However, the critical point here, as has been pointed out by the MEAI and others, including Disabled Artists and Disabled Academics, DADA, is that people with disabilities carry additional costs variously estimated, depending on levels of disability, at between €7,000 and €12,000, or an average of approximately €10,000, and there is the potential to lose their medical card. What they want is certainty that this will not be the case and that the additional money over basic social welfare payments in the new €325 payment will be available to artists with disability to channel into their art, which is the purpose of the basic income pilot, and is not gobbled up by them compensating for losses in their disability payments.
As I said earlier, in the case of the disability allowance, for example, it will be possible for many people to avail of the basic income and retain social welfare benefits in addition to the moneys received from the pilot scheme. However, it is important to stress that, as part of that, every individual's case is different in terms of their household income. The Deputies will know how familial cases vary. That is why there is a structure with the Department of Social Protection. The Department will engage directly with all disabled artists who are selected for the pilot scheme to help work through and understand the impact that accepting the payment will have on their individual circumstances. It is something on which the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, is focused. She believes the basic income has the potential to help artists and creative arts workers, including those with disabilities, to overcome labour market barriers by creating a self-sustainable creative practice operating on a self-employed basis. That is why there is that structure between the two Departments to work through. As I said, the Department of Social Protection is willing to engage with all who are selected as part of the pilot.
3. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media the way that she plans to support the recovery of those artists who do not receive the basic income for artists for the three years of the pilot scheme. [22466/22]
This question relates to those who will not be successful in availing of the basic income for artists scheme when the adjudication or selection is made after the scheme closes next week. What additional supports are being made available for all artists who are suffering, have suffered through the Covid-19 pandemic and suffered prior to the pandemic in terms of income?
The basic income for the arts, BIA, is a pilot scheme, the outcomes of which will inform future policy on the manner in which the State provides supports to artists. The Department expects a high volume of applications and it will not be possible to provide funding to all eligible applicants. The pilot scheme will run over a three-year period and the intention is to research the impact a basic income would have on artists' creative work patterns by providing the opportunity to focus on their practice, recognising the value of the unpaid element of work that goes into creative practice, to minimise the loss of skills from the arts as a result of the pandemic and to contribute to the growth of the sector. The overarching objective of the scheme is to address the earnings instability that can be associated with the intermittent, periodic and often project-based nature of work in the arts. The scheme will research the impact on artists' and creative arts workers' creative practice of providing the security of a basic income, thereby reducing income precariousness.
Funding for the scheme will allow for approximately 2,000 eligible applicants to participate in the pilot research scheme. Selection will be a non-competitive process. Once an applicant satisfies the eligibility criteria he or she will be included in an anonymised random sampling process to determine the pilot recipients from the pool of eligible applicants for the BIA pilot. In addition, up to 1,000 eligible applicants who were not selected to receive the payment will be selected to participate in a control group to facilitate the evaluation of the pilot. Control group participants will respond to the same survey and data requests as those in receipt of the payment to help assess the impact of the payment as compared with those not in receipt of it. As part of the application process, applicants will be asked to indicate if they do not want to participate in the control group. Control group members will be paid two weeks basic income for each year of the pilot scheme to compensate them for the time required to engage in the data collection process.
I am very cognisant of the challenges faced by the arts, culture and live entertainment industry as the sector recovers post pandemic. To this end, a €50 million suite of supports for the live performance sector was delivered in 2022 to provide performance and employment opportunities for artists and crews. I might have a chance to outline those later.
I got no answer there to my question. I hope the Minister of State will be able to come back to it, because he appeared to be getting to the nub of it. It is welcome that 2,000 artists will avail of the new scheme. It will be interesting. Those in the control group will receive €650 for being in the group over a full year, which is also welcome. However, that leaves many thousands more artists who will continue to struggle after the pandemic, as they had prior to it. What are the plans to support their recovery, additional to the basic income? Will the Minister of State outline how he will address the poverty and the failure of incomes for artists throughout the country into the future?
When the basic income pilot scheme was announced, it was always going to be for a specific cohort that was selected as I referred to in my initial reply. However, the supports for the arts and culture sector secured in 2022 are very clear. There is €25 million for the basic income scheme for artists and arts workers. We are maintaining the Arts Council allocation at a record level of €130 million. This allocation allows the Arts Council to continue to protect the jobs and livelihoods of artists and to assist arts organisations through financial difficulties.
There is €50 million for further supports in 2022 for the live entertainment industry as this important sector emerges from the devastating impacts of the pandemic. There is a more than €6 million increase in funding for Screen Ireland from its initial allocation in 2021 to more than €36 million. There is €5 million additional funding for the national cultural institutions, which will ensure they provide high quality services to the public, and €4 million to deliver a suite of initiatives proposed by the night-time economy task force, including a new scheme for pubs and cafes to broaden night-time economy activity across the country. There is €5 million to support the 2022 commemorative programme.
The Deputy can see that there have been unprecedented allocations to support the arts and culture sector in addition to progressing the pilot scheme, which was a key policy objective.
Go raibh maith ag an Aire Stáit. That was the answer I was hoping for but which I did not get in the first round. I wish those on the scheme well when it starts. It is to be hoped that we will learn lessons from it that can be addressed.
The previous question addressed some of the pitfalls that have already been outlined. A total of €25 million is being diverted to 2,000 artists. I want to ask about additional money rather than the same money. Has additional money been set aside for other artists who do not avail of the scheme and who can apply for additional grants as we come out of the pandemic? Most of the money the Minister of State announced was ring fenced for the pandemic to try to ensure some artists living in poverty who had no other source of income could survive.
I was halfway through the supports for 2022 and I will now give other details on additional supports. There is €50 million for the live performance restart grant scheme to support the recovery of the live performance sector. There is €4 million for the music and entertainment business assistance scheme. This is specifically to support small music and entertainment businesses that do not operate out of rateable premises. There is €5 million for local authorities to support local artists and performers through the local live performance support scheme. This scheme in particular has provided thousands of hours of employment for local musicians, artists and crews. There is €5 million to continue the capital support scheme for venues, including for ventilation upgrades and other Covid adaptations.
As the Deputy has seen from what I referenced in the previous response, from the unprecedented funding to the Arts Council, funding for the national cultural institutions and additional support for the live entertainment sector, there is unprecedented support in many funding streams. Artists will see a real benefit from these through this year. The fact we have the basic income pilot happening, which has been called for and spoken about for decades, puts the arts on a positive trajectory in the coming years.
