A chara, – While presenting TG4's arts series Imeall I frequently encounter extraordinarily talented artists who struggle to make ends meat.
Should we look at introducing an Irish equivalent of France's intermittents du spectacle scheme. This is an artists' unemployment insurance system which offers relief to those working in the cultural sector during downtime.
Artists, arts practitioners, and technicians – including traditional musicians – receive monthly payments once they clock up several hundred hours work over the course of 10 months.
This would offer a safety net – not a hammock – to those creative people who have taken a precarious path and whose work benefits us all.
– Le meas,
TRISTAN ROSENSTOCK
Bóthar na gCloch,
BÁC 7.
Sir, – While the suggestions made by your correspondents in response to the government's recently-published national cultural policy ( Weekend Review, Saturday July 30th) are admirable, and in some instances, keenly imaginative, not one of them advocated or even mentioned what has to be the fundamental bedrock on which any cultural policy is built – the proper and adequately-funded integration of the arts into the school curriculum.
For decades much has been said about the deficit in arts education in our schools but little or nothing done by our policy makers. Formal recognition of this need was acknowledged in the charter on the arts in education introduced by former ministers Jimmy Deenihan and Ruairí Quinn and supported by the Arts Council. There is yet no real evidence of significant implementation of the ideals contained in the charter.
Arts policy has to start in the school classroom. For many in the past, including some of today’s writers and artists, it has been the random chance of encountering an inspiring and committed teacher that led to a life of arts appreciation and enjoyment and even art-making.
– Yours, etc,
GERARD SMYTH,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.