Richard Boyd Barrett slams arts funding, exposes film contracts

The title of the report from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Culture and Heritage is that the arts matter and politicians are quick to say they believe the arts matter whenever the issue is discussed but when you actually look at the level of support given by the state to the arts it would suggest that really in reality the political system doesn't think the arts matter it doesn't treat the arts like they matter because the level of funding for the arts is abysmal and I don't think there's any gain saying that the level of funding in this country is well well below the average level of funding in most of Europe which as people are very familiar in this chamber is 0.6 percent of GDP GDP is the average in the EU whereas in Ireland we're talking about 0.1 percent and when you consider how this country's reputation, international reputation at sort of every level rests to a very very significant extent on our reputation in the arts for poetry, for literature, for theatre, for music for other art forms. That is a pretty serious indictment of the lack of commitment by the political system to the arts. They are as Deputy Osnody intimated indeed as others have said here before people are very quick to jump into photographs with artists to turn up for the big press occasions to go to the big high profile events but when you actually look at the level of support support that is given to the arts it is abysmal and the plight of the artist is even more abysmal. The levels of poverty, precariousness and just the struggle to survive for artists in this country is extreme and does not suggest that the political system think that artists and people who work in the arts, in theatre, in literature, in film, in film, in literature, in film as I will discuss and have discussed on many occasions it doesn't suggest that we really think they matter when it comes down to brass tacks and the facts on that are stark and were fairly well aired by Theatre Forum earlier this year in the Dáil arising out of their survey which told us that 80% of people surveyed exist in a precarious state of employment. They don't know from job to job if they will have another job. Now how do you get a mortgage? How can you even be sure you'll be able to pay your rent? What about health care? You know at every single level if you're in precarious work and of course artists aren't the only people in a precarious situation, precarity in employment, lack of income and employment security is a huge problem in many sectors but certainly the arts is very much one of those and 80% of workers according to the people surveyed were in a precarious position. 60% of PAYE jobs in the performing arts pay less than average industrial earnings with the survey finding that the annual wage of two-thirds of those surveyed was under 23,000 euro. 60,000 euro. So the artists, the people who work in the creative field and work in the arts generally are treated very, very badly. And I was just before I got up to speak I was just scribbling down something that was sent to me. And this gives a sort of an indication of one particular sector and I've made this point again and again about the need for the government to take seriously having quality employment and that condition around film funding which is 80 million euro a year, more if you add in the Irish Film Board in terms of tax relief, conditional on actually giving real rights to workers in the film industry. So I'm going to quote to you, this is just what film crew have to put up with, right? I'm going to quote to you three clauses from a contract for a film crew member on a film that is being made now. A film that will almost certainly be in receipt of section 481 tax relief. Clause 10. Your working hours will vary depending upon the needs of the film as the company shall notify you from time to time. On each date on which you are required to provide your services, you agree to make yourself available to service the requirements of a normal 10 hour shooting day plus one hour lunch or a continuous 9.5 hour day with half an hour at lunch. Okay? That's in black and white a clear breach of the Organisation of Working Time Act. Clear breach. Clause 5. The provisions of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 to 2007 shall not apply to any termination of your agreement, consisting only of completion of specified purpose. Right? You can't do that. You can't tell people that the unfair dismissal doesn't apply to you. But that's what you have to sign up to get a job in the Irish film industry. Films funded completely dependent on public money. It goes on. You will have no entitlement to be paid your salary during a period of your absence due to illness except at the discretion of the company. Another clear breach of workers entitlements. That's the sort of contracts flying around in the Irish film industry. Now what are we going to do about that? I've been saying this for two years. And the people who publicly came out and blew the whistle on this have been effectively blacklisted out of the industry. That's what's going on. Right? And nobody seems to want to do anything about it. Let's not upset the apple cart. It's got to stop, Minister. It's got to stop. That's the film industry. But of course that's just one example of the general contempt with which artists and performers and people working in the arts are treated. Now, what can we do about that? Okay? What can we do about that? Well, given in the area of film, let's do what the Indican report of 1995 said we should do. If we're going to put a lot of public money into the Irish film industry, it should be directed towards creating companies of scale. And as EU directives on the area of State Aid to the Arts clearly states, State Aid to the Arts, which is absolutely necessary and in my opinion should double, should significantly increase, has to be on the condition of creating viable companies of scale with a permanent pool of employees. And I want to stress, just in case anybody tries to throw sort of dust in people's eyes, that when I or workers in the arts say permanent pool of employees, does not mean they expect to be employed all year round, 365 days, even if there's no films or no work. That's not what they're saying and it's not what I'm saying. What it is about saying is that they shouldn't be in a completely precarious position from project to project. Everybody accepts that in film and in many of the arts there is a project to project character to the thing, but workers should carry over some rights and entitlements from one production to the other, particularly when the employers are often the same from one project to another and are in a sheet of large amounts of public money. They shouldn't be in a constantly precarious position when the producers are getting the money again and again. The same producers, but setting up different designated activity companies in order to essentially shield themselves from any responsibility for their employees. That's what's going on. So you have people getting tax relief money saying to the government, give us this money because we'll create quality employment. And then when the workers say, hey, you're my employer, will you give me my rights? They say, I'm not your employer. A DAC is your employer. DAC doesn't exist anymore because they finished with the last film. That's just not acceptable. Right? But it reflects a more general, I mean, I've focused on film, but it reflects a more general problem. I mean, why don't we, for example, employ thousands of our artists, our performers, our writers and so on, where we give them a living income, let them pursue their creative pursuits, but ask them in exchange for living income to work in education, mental health, schools and so on, for a number of days or weeks during the course of the year. So they give something back to society, enrich different sectors of society, our schools, people in the area of mental health, people in community projects in disadvantaged areas and so on. In exchange, they get a living income, so they have some sort of security of employment and income which will allow them to pursue their arts, but actually live a proper existence, where they can pay their rent, maybe get a mortgage and so on. Because the artists are the people who produce the arts sector. Without them, if we don't treat them properly, we're not actually acting on the principle of the arts matter. So I appeal to the Minister to recognise those points and to honour the artists and the creative workers and the people who work, the shooting crew, the people who work in this industry. They deserve respect and proper treatment.