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ARTSCAPE:WHAT’S UP with the artists’ tax exemption? Actually, what’s down is its cap, from €250,000 to €125,000, along with a range of other “specified reliefs” in this week’s Finance Bill, and as indicated in December’s Budget. Mind you, the adjusted cap is unlikely to have much impact on most artists – figures from 2008 show 50 per cent of artists earn less than €10,000, 70 per cent earn less than €20,000 and 92 per cent earn less than €50,000.

But the real question is, when is something going to change with how decisions are made on who qualifies for the artists’ tax exemption? As time passes the credibility of a progressive scheme ebbs away. That literary works such as Bertie’s ghosted apologia and Gerry Ryan’s memoirs (along with a bunch of sports books, political biographies, and all sorts of other unexpected items) have qualified for the exemption on the basis of their, eh, artistic and cultural merit has made the scheme, designed to aid struggling artists, justifiably the subject of tabloid outrage and public revulsion. This has nothing to do with its original intention, and all to do with how the guidelines have been interpreted.