About 150 artists, actors and musicians protested outside the Department of Arts in Dublin today over what they said was a collapse in their incomes due to budget cuts and the recession.
“It’s hard to make a living as an artist at the best of times,” said Des Courtney, group secretary of Irish Actors’ Equity.
“But the recession and cuts are making things near to impossible for many artists.”
Rynagh O’Grady of the actors’ organisation said very few professional artists can earn a living from their work and most have to work at something else to subsidise their artistic earnings.
“Much of that other work – part-time teaching and so on – has also collapsed because of the recession.
Studies of the living and working conditions of artists working in Ireland by the Arts Council and other bodies show that artists earn an average of less than €10,000 a year from their creative work.
Ms O’Grady said cuts in Arts Council and local authority funding, as well as a drop in advertising spending, had contributed to the reduction in artists’ incomes, and also to the fall in audiences for arts events.
She said many artists were increasingly being asked to undertake work for lower fees or for free.
Musician Andy Irvine, accompanied by a number of brass players, performed at today’s event. Also present were actors Bryan Murray and Joe McKinney.
David Kavanagh of the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild said the group wanted to point out to Minister for Arts Mary Hanafin that “everyone is hurting”.
“We understand that things have to be cut everywhere. We are not looking for special treatment, but everyone is hurting at the moment.”
Mr Kavanagh said artists just hoped to ensure the arts did not suffer any worse than any other area when it came to cuts.
He said the circumstances of those working in the arts had always been “tenuous”.
“When you are dealing with something so tenuous, the danger is that cuts will go so far that the whole thing will collapse.”
Mr Kavanagh said some 60,000 people worked in the arts in Ireland – the equivalent of 2.5 per cent of the working population.
It is the first time representative bodies for a range of arts professions have banded together under the banner of the Association of Artists Representatives’ Organisations to campaign on an issue of concern.
The umbrella organisation represents the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild, the Musicians’ Union of Ireland, Visual Artists Ireland, Irish Actors’ Equity, the Screen Directors’ Guild of Ireland and the Association of Irish Composers.
Today’s event was part of tomorrow’s national ‘day of action’ organised by the National Campaign for the Arts, and the Association of Artists’ Representative Organisations. The campaign group will meet Taoiseach Brian Cowen tomorrow, and local groups will meet TDs all over the country.
Ahead of the Budget, the group is calling for the maintenance of existing levels of arts funding to all agencies for the arts including the Arts Council, the Irish Film Board and Culture Ireland.
It is also seeking an assurance that local authority arts funding will be protected and that “significant” new funding be made available to the arts and cultural sector