Role of the dole: How benefits benefit artists

Obviously, this subject raises questions about the role of welfare. Many feel that unless artists make their art work economically in the short term, they should change profession. However, most successful artists did not start their careers with economic success, or even solvency, and nobody wants art to be the province of the independently wealthy. “It would be really interesting if there was someone in every social-welfare office who was at least trained in or had some facility with the arts and could engage with artists coming in to claim the dole,” says Murphy. “It would be very forward thinking and progressive if artists could come in and sit down and honestly say, ‘Here’s what I’m doing. Here’s my work and here’s what the Arts Council says. I’m not taking the mick.’”

Kelly has been trying to arrange a meeting between Visual Artists Ireland and the Minister for Social Protection to discuss the problems struggling artists have with the system. He is also advocating a version of the New Deal of the Mind that operates in the UK. The scheme references the original New Deal in the US in the 1930s, which included unprecedented levels of state funding to the arts during the Great Depression. “The New Deal of the Mind takes the deficit of staff in the culture sector and matches it with artists registered as unemployed and looking for additional employment,” says Kelly. “There are all these cultural institutions around the country that can’t deliver the programmes they have because they don’t have the staff. This could address that and give artists work.”

Gough thinks it’s important to make explicit something that’s usually just a whisper: that the actors, writers, artists and film-makers who enrich our culture often need to claim benefits. “The dole is incredibly significant for the arts in Ireland, and that’s not well acknowledged,” he says. “It’s not a luxurious life, by any means. It might be nice if artists could get a modest income to acknowledge that what they’re doing is culturally useful. It would have to be less than the dole, though, to stop people pretending to be artists to get it.” He laughs. “Maybe just a symbolic euro less.”