Theatre workers’ anger over Government scheme

The Galway arts collective, Theatre57, which represents almost 100 independent theatre artists, has expressed its disappointment and anger at schemes put forward by Arts Minister Josepha Madigan to assist artists during the current crisis. These proposals display a lack of understanding about artists’ work and a disregard for the creative sector, according to its members: “especially when we are going through a collective trauma, and when our existence was precarious before this happened.”

Her proposals reflect the “ongoing commodification of the arts”, they feel.

Minister Madigan’s plans, announced on Friday, included the Arts Council Covid-19 Crisis Response Awards. She stated that these would award 334 artists with grants of €3,000 each, following a competitive application process.

Minister Madigan also announced details of Culture Ireland’s ‘Ireland Performs’ in partnership with Facebook, which would award 100 artists €1,000 each to perform on Facebook Live.

“As an organisation that represents 90+ independent theatre artists (mostly self-employed individuals without any regular or guaranteed funding) Theatre57 finds the Government’s response to this crisis deeply disappointing,” a spokesperson for the group said.

“In the first instance, the awards are insufficient (€1.1 million) considering they are designed to fund the entire arts sector across all disciplines.”

Nor do they represent significant additional funding according to the spokesperson, as “€500,000 has been taken from already-budgeted monies. It is simply a re-appropriation of funds”.

The group compared the Irish Government’s response to that of the Welsh Government, which announced an emergency arts fund of £7 million for a country which has some 1.5 million fewer people than Ireland.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.