Author: Breffni Banks

• Expand the Basic Income for the Arts pilot programme.
• Continue to increase Arts Council funding, now at record levels, including by establishing a new arts capital and equipment programme.
• Support Local Authorities to provide more studios, practice spaces and workspaces for the creative community.
• Allow for longer opening hours and reform event licensing to revitalise the nighttime economy.
• Provide financial incentives for live venues to support the development of new creative acts.

• Build new Music Education Hubs so that more students can benefit from structured and sustained instruction in music;
• Develop a new multi-year Capital Programme for National Arts Infrastructure and establish an Arts Capital and Equipment Programme for local and community arts;
• Continue the section 481 film tax credit to support film and unscripted productions and examine options to introduce specific measures for the visual effects sector;
• Retain the Basic Income for Artists Scheme and address access issued for disabled artists;
• Support artists to access international opportunities through increased funding for Culture Ireland and support for our embassies to promote more bilateral exchanges;
• Boost funding for the Touring of Work Scheme to facilitate regional presentations of professional productions and extend access to arts organisations and venues in Northern Ireland;
• Increase financial support for the Creative Schools and Music Generation projects
• Establish and fund and Irish Town of Culture programmes to support local creative projects;
• Mandate each of the National Culture Institutions to develop a programme to Transition Year students;

Arts in Education:

• Ensure that every child has access to tuition in art, music, drama, or coding through an expanded Creative Schools programme, embedding creativity within the curriculum to develop diverse skills and cultural appreciation.

Supporting Artists and Expanding Creative Spaces

• Increase Artist Workspaces, Support the redevelopment of sites like Dublin’s Odlum’s Flour Mills to create shared studios, rehearsal spaces, and performance venues, offering affordable spaces for artists to work and collaborate.
• Expand Creative Spaces Across Ireland: Monitor and support local authorities in providing more studios and performance venues through the new pilot scheme, encouraging access to creative spaces nationwide.
• Use Suitable Unoccupied Spaces for Arts: Partner with the OPW to make temporary use of vacant buildings as studios or performance spaces, providing flexible and accessible venues for artists.
• Simplify Festival Organisation: Streamline licensing, traffic management, and insurance processes to facilitate festival planning, promoting vibrant, accessible events for communities.

Sustain Funding for the Arts:

• Maintain and grow funding for the Arts Council, Culture Ireland, and other organisations that support both national and international artistic endeavours.
• Continue the Basic Income for Artists: Advance and assess the Basic Income for Artists pilot to maximise its impact, supporting financial stability for artists and fostering a thriving cultural sector.
• Introduce a €300 Culture Card for 16 and 17-yearolds to access theatre, music, and art events, making cultural experiences more accessible for young people.
• Work with National Cultural Institutions to improve public access to Ireland’s collections through exhibitions, loans, and educational programmes, extending their reach to communities nationwide.
• Encourage Late-Night Openings: Promote later opening hours at museums, galleries, and other cultural venues to offer flexible access for visitors.
• Support Local and National Cultural Institutions: Continue grants for community-based cultural institutions and support large cultural centres, ensuring vibrant cultural opportunities across Ireland.
• Redevelop the GPO as a Historic Landmark: Undertake a major redevelopment of the GPO preserving its historic importance and enhancing its role as a key cultural landmark in Dublin.
• Fund the National Concert Hall: Provide sustained funding and support to further develop the National Concert Hall as a premier cultural venue.
• Prioritise the Cork Events Centre: Drive the completion of the Cork Events Centre to enhance Cork’s cultural landscape and boost the city’s regeneration.
• Support Creative Youth and Arts Diversity: Continue funding Creative Youth, ensuring inclusivity and access for young people of diverse backgrounds interested in the arts.
• Expand Arts in Early Education: Introduce and expand arts programming in early childhood education and care settings, nurturing creativity from a young age. Fine Gael’s commitment to culture aims to make the arts accessible, celebrate Ireland’s history, and foster a dynamic cultural sector for future generations.

Investing in the Arts: Labour will ensure that the Arts represent a viable career, and our artists can continue to contribute to our cultural and social landscape. Building on this funding we will:

• Provide a permanent Basic Income for the Arts scheme and expand it to increase access, starting with younger artists. The pilot has been successful by providing economic security and facilitating creative freedom.
• Deliver reforms to the tax and welfare system to better support artists with a living income, recognising their status often as freelance independent contractors, and their production and service costs.
• Address barriers for disabled, LGBTQIA+ and ethnically diverse artists and art workers as recommended by the Safe to Create Amplify report.
• Seek to expand Arts Council support to a broader range of artists.
• Ensure proper enforcement of copyright law so that artists, be they writers, musicians, painters, composers or designers, benefit from the revenue streams arising from their work, and protect their intellectual property from AI.
• Publish a comprehensive and inclusive National Music Strategy to bring stakeholders together and promote the continued growth and success of the Irish music industry and seek increased airtime for Irish artists on licensed radio stations.
• Support the development of digital arts in the fields of audiovisual content, gaming, and animation.
• Develop a new National Cultural policy framework for the next decade and increase funding for Culture Ireland.

SPACES FOR ARTISTS Our artists need more spaces. Culture can’t compete with capitalism. Labour has published a comprehensive plan to ensure active state support for saving and growing artists’ spaces. We will establish a new Cultural Infrastructure Company to work closely with local authorities to actively plan for and ensure the adequate provision of artists’ spaces and music venues across the country. We will:

• Undertake a major expansion of the Space to Create scheme to support local authorities secure spaces.
• Provide low-cost State-backed cultural mortgages and loans for artist organisations to purchase or retrofit buildings.
• Introduce Cultural Conservation Orders on buildings after 20 years of established cultural use.
• Allocate specific funding for emerging artists to access short term leases when required to qualify for Arts Council programme funding.
• Apply a Culture/Social Use First policy for vacant publicly owned buildings not suitable for residential use.
• Labour will actively promote the creation of artists’ cooperatives or other formal structures with targeted financial and administrative support and incentives to access leases and manage their own property over a sustained period.

 THE NIGHT ECONOMY Labour will develop a thriving night economy and expand existing initiatives to bring vibrancy back into our towns and cities’ nightlife. We will:

• Give people greater choice in how they enjoy the nighttime and support cultural institutions to stay open later into the evening.
• Reform licensing laws to allow for more flexibility in opening hours and the variety of places that can sell alcohol, create an annual nightclub licence, and transfer responsibility to the Department of Culture and Arts.
• Review and update noise management regulations for a compatible and harmonious relationship between the night economy and urban residents.

BROADCASTING:

• We will continue the principle of using Sound and Vision funds to promote climate action, live music broadcasting and Irish language content and expand it to include collective bargaining and trade union recognition.
• Labour will increase investment through Screen Ireland to ensure the continued production of high-quality indigenous films, TV shows and documentaries, alongside the development of Irish performers and Irish language programming,
• Labour will further review Section 481 to ensure it remains internationally competitive to support national and regional production and the inclusion of Irish music creators.

NEW IDEAS TO REVITALISE DUBLIN

• Between Abbey Street, Bachelors Walk and Eden Quay there are laneways with low rise lockups that have become no-go areas with a lot of vacancy. Labour will seek to CPO parts of this area using our proposed Cultural Infrastructure Company to redevelop it as a new artists quarter and offer space for artist studios and cooperatives and creative startups, along with new affordable city centre accommodation for people working there.

Labour’s manifesto has extensive plans to support a thriving arts and culture sector. For Dublin a long-needed overhaul of licensing laws is essential to regenerate the nighttime economy. This will bring back vibrancy to the city centre and allow for experimentation with new experiences and venues. Labour will ensure this is progressed, and support longer opening hours for cultural institutions.

• Bring the funding for cultural services, broadcasting, and publishing services closer to the EU average of 0.9% of GDP;
• Provide additional funding to the Arts Council to increase the support for the arts and in particular new media art forms such as for computer animation, digital art, and video games, and expand allocation of funding to more artists;
• Make the Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme permanent & expand the definition of artists to be eligible for funding to include most forms of creative arts;
• Allocate funding to local councils specifically for cultural relevant art-related projects in local communities;
• Open schools and colleges for after-school artistic activities for children and teenagers;
• Open public spaces for use by local arts organisations;
• Increase core funding for Youth Work with a substantial increase in 2025 to meet baselines costs;
• Increase support to local community centres.

• Implementing our 50-point “Poblacht na hÉireann, Poblacht na n-Ealaíon” plan for the arts. https://www.sinnfein.ie/files/2024/Poblacht_na_nEalai%CC%81on.pdf
• Increasing funding to An Chomhairle Ealaíon (The Arts Council) by €60m providing multi-annual funding, and building on its work to create a more representative, decentralised, inclusive and democratic framework for the arts that serves communities nationwide
• Increasing funding for Culture Ireland over a term in government v Continuing the three-year Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Scheme to completion and using the vital research to develop a sustainable and equitable long-term scheme
• Expanding Catherine’s Law to exempt Disabled Artists from having arts bursaries and awards count against their social protection entitlements
• Delivering an Arts Spaces Capital Programme based on the Sports Capital Grants, creating legal protection for existing cultural spaces, ensuring space for culture and nightlife is included in development planning, and developing a Cultural Workers Housing and Studio Space Pilot project
• Developing a comprehensive policy for the Arts in Education from pre-school to third level and adult learning, expanding Creative Schools, restoring the School Libraries Fund, and delivering our Activity Card of €130 per child to support participation in arts and sports activities
• Making space for visual art by examining the introduction of minimum art requirements for the public realm, championing architecture, designating one or more National Sculpture Gardens, expanding access to the state’s art collection, and enacting Eoin Ó Broin’s Public Art Mural Bill to exempt public art murals from planning permission
• Building on the Strategy for Irish Language-based Arts to put Irish language and Gaelic traditional arts at the heart of policymaking and funding for each sector of the arts.
• Recognising the artforms of comedy, musical theatre, storytelling, and fashion design, granting them access to Arts Council supports
• Incorporating arts bulletins within the news service of public service broadcasters.
• Examining ways to better enforce existing anti-tout legislation, bring dynamic pricing under control, and develop a platform to distribute tickets so that no seat is left empty
• Reviewing what defines “Irish music” or “Irish cultural works” in terms of tax incentives, royalties, airtime, content requirements, and supports to ensure artists based in Ireland benefit most from such classification and achieve more Irish music on radio and in film
• Increasing capital and current funding for Screen Ireland
• Developing a long-term replacement for the Section 481 Regional Uplift, and make the Cultural Certificate required for the film tax relief conditional on compliance with Irish and EU copyright law and workers’ rights, ending the practice of ‘buy-out’ contracts, and equal treatment for Irish workers compared to colleagues on the same project
• Exploring options for a dedicated tax relief for live theatre productions
• Introducing a designated ‘night venue’ classification in licensing and planning law and update and modernise licensing laws and costs, considering the extension of trading hours in line with other European countries, expanding license access for cultural institutions and non-profits, and supporting late night entertainment in cafés and more options for alcohol-free events
• Examining the impact of Artificial Intelligence on Culture and the Arts with a view to developing a policy at national level, and a coordinated response at European Union and international level, to safeguard the intellectual property rights and livelihoods of Irish artists, creators and performers, while strengthening the artists’ right to resale.

• Develop a roadmap for progressive increases in total arts funding, with a focus on current expenditure to practicing artists through the Arts Council and Culture Ireland.
• Establish special commercial rates for creative/arts spaces and “rates holidays” for new projects.
• Enhance supports for the Irish film and publishing industries.
• Introduce multi-annual funding for essential arts organisations to allow for long-term planning decisions.
• Introduce an annual Culture Voucher, worth €200, to encourage 18–24-year-olds to take part in cultural activities.
• Encourage affordable live/workspaces for artists and creative practitioners.
• Ensure the DSP/Intreo has a framework for understanding irregular/freelance work.
• Ensure planning legislation takes cultural and creative spaces into account for all public developments.
• Revitalise our night-time cultural economy by legislating for later opening hours for venues and bars, as well as further extending the hours of public transport systems.
• Review our licensing laws, including the Public Dance Halls Act and the Theatre Licence, to ensure they are fit for purpose.
• Support the establishment of Night Mayors in each of our major cities.
• Invest in physical infrastructure needed in the Arts sector such as studios, galleries, theatres and workspaces.
• Increase investment in Culture Ireland to enhance our global reputation and create more opportunities for Irish artists and international collaboration. We will also restore independent oversight of its organisation.
• Use the findings from the Basic Income for Artists study to create a more permanent scheme to support artists financially.
• Reform Section 15 tax breaks so that they do not unintentionally discriminate against Irish artists.
• Extending the current Basic Income for Artists scheme and expand participation. Its criteria must also be reformed so that it doesn’t continue to effectively exclude disabled artists. It’s also worth noting that artists working in the live performance, film and other audiovisual sectors in France have a designated unemployment insurance scheme; the ‘Scheme for Intermittent Workers in the Performing Arts’, in English. In government, we will examine the possibility of a similar scheme for Ireland.
• Ensure universal access to arts education at both primary and secondary levels.
• Expand the Creative Schools programme and ensure it continues beyond the life of the Creative Ireland initiative.
• Ensure all National Cultural Institutions take action to promote equality, diversity, inclusivity and accessibility.
• Introduce Drama and Theatre Studies as a Leaving Cert subject.
• Support the rebalancing of arts curricula to ensure a more equitable gender representation.
• Provide an additional Arts budget for DEIS schools.
• Sports and Activity Voucher – Too many young people are being priced out of playing a sport or learning a creative art. The Social Democrats is proposing a €150 Sports and Cultural Activity voucher for all children aged 6 to 18. This voucher would ensure that children get to participate in their chosen sport or activity for free or at a heavily subsidised price.