Speech by Fine Gael Leader & Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar at the launch of the pilot scheme to assist self-employed artists & writers

The pilot-scheme initiative that I am announcing today is one of ten tasks of The Creative Ireland programme for this year.  It allows artists, who are self-employed and received more than 50% of income from their art in the past year, to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance without being subject to the normal activation process like having to prove that they are genuinely seeking other work, taking part in courses or classes like CV preparation, job-searching or referral to JobPath, Tús and Jobs Clubs, for example. The means-test will of course apply.

So, it is designed and targeted to support financially artists who cannot yet make ends meet from their art but may do so in the future if they are allowed to focus on it rather than seeking other work or education. We have had an artists’ exemption in the tax system for a long time but this is only of use to established artists doing well enough to avail of it. What I am announcing today is the social welfare version of the ‘artist exemption’ for those starting off or still trying to get established.

I am told that the other tasks will also be delivered in addition to Cruinniú na Cásca and Local Authority Creative Ireland Plans for 2017 which have already been delivered.

It is significant that one of the very early actions of Creative Ireland is one that has a direct impact on the lives of artists.  It is a recognition of the centrality of the artist themselves to the Creative Ireland programme – something that Minister Humphreys and the Taoiseach have repeatedly emphasised.

Of course the origins of this particular initiative pre-date Creative Ireland.  The National Campaign for the Arts and many of you here in this room have made a forceful case for what we are now doing.

I want to acknowledge your persistence.  You were right: this initiative is necessary and overdue.

We have come through a very difficult period economically, the worse and deepest recession in a generation.  It cannot have been easy to keep faith with a political system which was unable to accede to the request that we try to stay broadly in line with comparable countries in terms of funding of the arts – and in demonstrating respect for the work that artists do.

Our ambitions now extend well beyond ‘staying broadly in line’.  And that leads me to what I think is the real significance of the Creative Ireland Programme.

There are two aspects that strike me:

First, by focusing on the creative capacities of every individual, Creative Ireland bypasses the argument about whether the arts should be supported because of their intrinsic value, or for their instrumental value to the economy.  It’s a bogus one and always was.

Creative children become creative people.

Creative people of all ages are happier and more fulfilled. Creative people have greater capacity, and greater desire, to contribute to their communities and to society – and to the economy and wellbeing of everyone.

More than ever before, we need creativity if we are to thrive and flourish in a globalised world.   What matters most in the new economy is the ability to design and innovate, to re-imagine and reconfigure.

What can set us apart as Irishmen and women is our ability to think and act creatively – like the artist who starts her day with nothing, or the writer staring at a blank page who is driven by an inner creative impulse to produce a thousand words of meaning by the end of the day.

We all know that through engagement with arts and culture we can stimulate imaginative and innovative thinking, develop conceptual skills, and bring people together in collaborative creativity.

Secondly, Creative Ireland as a cross-government initiative tells us something essential about culture – that culture is not something separate from education, or local government, or health and wellbeing, or the welfare of children or older people – or our economy, or social cohesion.  Culture is about ‘us’ in the broadest sense. Investing in the arts and culture is investing in ourselves– and there is no more important investment.

Creative Ireland provides a way of thinking as much as it provides a programme of actions.  It challenges us to do better – and as Taoiseach, if I am elected on Wednesday, I will be challenging Creative Ireland to make sure, for example, that the Creative Children plan which is due in the autumn will be ground-breaking in its ideas and approach, that the plan for expanding the screen industries in Ireland will be imaginative and ambitious, that in developing our national profile as a country that values arts and culture we will do so in ways that are authentic.

Finally I would like to return to the initiative we are launching today. You might have heard in recent weeks that I have a certain sympathy for people who get up early in the morning!  It never even occurred to me that this would be a controversial idea …

In fact, I think it’s a sentiment that resonates particularly well with many artists.

Raymond Carver, the great writer and poet, spoke of how the world is full of talented writers, but those who succeed are the ones who turn up for work every day: those who are ‘at their station’.

Chuck Close, the painter, had something similar in mind when he said that:  ‘…inspiration works for amateurs: the rest of us just show up and get to work.’

Friends … the purpose of this initiative is to help artists who are serious about their work to do what they most want to do – show up and get to work.

That’s what we are trying to achieve with this initiative.  We will watch and observe it, and see how best it can be expanded and developed in future years.