Oireachtas committees: A joint Oireachtas committee has unanimously endorsed calls for the retention of the artists' exemption scheme and, also unanimously, supported the Arts Council in seeking funding of €79.3 million for 2006.
This represents an increase of just over €17 million on the 2005 figure.
It followed a presentation to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Sport, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs by the Arts Council chair, Olive Braiden, its director Mary Cloake, and council members Patrick Sutton and Theo Dorgan.
Ms Braiden said that in seeking just €79.3 million for 2007 they would "disappoint and distress many" but it was part of a strategy to move to an adequate level of funding by 2008. She said the Arts Council was working on a new strategy for the arts which, following "the most extensive period of consultation ever engaged in by the council" would chart "an exciting path for the arts in Ireland for the next 10 years." It was hoped to publish this strategy by early December, she said.
Noting that Ireland's direct funding of the arts was lower than that of any of its European counterparts, she said it was the Arts Council's goal to achieve a funding level of €100 million by 2008.
Calling for the retention of the artists' exemption scheme, Mr Dorgan opposed any capping of tax relief for artists, pointing out that just 2 per cent of artists would, currently, come within the 48 per cent tax bracket and that all such people had to do is leave the country.
This, he said, would simply mean a net loss to the country through the unemployment of people dependent on the work of artists.
Meanwhile, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service was told yesterday by Fr Seán Healy of Cori that artists' tax exemptions should be capped at €20,000 and refundable tax credits for children should be introduced to produce a fairer tax system.
He felt that a small number of individual artists are gaining large tax-free incomes because of the reliefs.
He also suggested the Exchequer would gain at least €2 billion a year if all tax reliefs were standard rated at 20 per cent.
Loopholes in the tax system that allowed high-earners to use tax relief schemes to reduce their liability were "profoundly unfair", Fr Healy said.
"Only where benefits surpass the costs should the reliefs be retained," he said.
"In the future any proposed reliefs should be subject to detailed assessment before they are introduced."