Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 7 October 2020
80. Deputy Eoghan Murphy asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media if a grant will be offered to musicians who predominantly work at live events to upskill or retrain within their field to be better placed to work in the current environment (details supplied). [29085/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraI am very conscious of the unprecedented nature of the challenge facing live performance musicians, not least from a financial point of view. I recently put in place a suite of supports for music and musicians. The Music Stimulus Package, involves three funding schemes designed to help sustain the popular and commercial music sector across all music genres, including rock, pop, hip hop, indie, jazz, country, and traditional and folk. Under this package, a fund of €1,000,000 is being put in place to stimulate areas of work which artists would usually fund with income from own sources including live event fees.
The music support schemes are targeted at professional musicians and their teams and will support song writing camps, recording and album releases. The aim is to ensure that Irish musicians, engineers, PR, media, agents, labels and publishers can continue to develop and share their work in the context of COVID restrictions. The Music Stimulus Package schemes will be managed on behalf of the Department by First Music Contact and will be subject to peer panel assessment.
In addition, I recently announced a new fund of €5m that will assist established commercial promoters to employ performers, artists, technicians, creative and performance support staff up to the end of 2020 in anticipation of the return of audiences to live performance. The “Live Performance Support Scheme” under my Department aims to assist commercial venues, producers and promoters of live performances provide employment to workers in the creative industries. The main objective of the scheme is to provide employment opportunities in the ticketed performance sector and allow commercial organisers of live performances to commence preparations immediately and productions to go ahead in the near future while also complying with public health protection measures. This scheme has been developed following consultation with the sector and is managed by my Department. I hope to announce the recipients of this funding in the coming weeks.
