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Submission to Department Finance

by Irish EQUITY and the Musicians' Union of Ireland - 2005 Review of Tax Reliefs and High Earners

Our proposals to extend the Artists Tax Exemption to Professional Performing Arts Practitioners provides an examination of the current status of the performing arts practitioner in Ireland. 

In a country famous for its contribution to the performing arts, it might be expected that our Performing Arts Practitioners be held in high esteem. The reality unfortunately contradicts this expectation. Having contributed significantly to our current economic and cultural richness, the Irish Performing Arts Practitioner continues to be neglected in a very real sense. By examining the historical role of the Performing Arts Practitioner in Ireland, and then looking at the current situation, this document argues that the Performing Arts Practitioner needs to be nurtured in the same way that we nurture our creative artists

On behalf of the members of Irish Equity and the Musicians' Union of Ireland, we wish to take this opportunity to address the Tax Relief for Artists Scheme, which is currently under review.

We believe the principle of non-taxation for works of creative art was one of the most enlightened pieces of legislation introduced into the State. While urging the Review Body to maintain the current situation for Creative Artists, we would also strongly urge it to extend the same rights and benefits to all Performing Arts Practitioners.

Using both an historical and a current perspective we set out below our arguments for not merely the confirmation of the scheme, but for the extension of the practice of the Scheme to cover the eligible earnings of those we represent in the Performing Arts, albeit with a ceiling on those earnings.

Introduction:
An examination of the current status of the Performing Arts Practitioner in Ireland.

In a country famous for its contribution to the performing arts, it might be expected that our Performing Arts Practitioners be held in high esteem. The reality, unfortunately, contradicts this expectation. Having contributed significantly to our current economic and cultural richness, the Irish Performing Arts Practitioner continues to be neglected in a very real sense. By first of all examining the historical role of the Performing Arts Practitioner in Ireland, and then looking at the current situation, this document argues that the Performing Arts Practitioner needs to be nurtured in the same way that we nurture our creative artists. Central to the document are some solid proposals how this might be done.

The term 'Performing Arts Practitioner' is taken to mean any person who gives creative expression through the performance, in whatever media, and who considers his or her contribution to be, not only his or her profession, but an essential part of his or her life, who contributes in this way to the development of culture and who asks to be recognised as a Performing Arts Practitioner, while employed and while seeking employment in his or her chosen field.

The term 'status' refers to the importance that is attributed to the role of the Performing Arts Practitioner in society, and the recognition of that role in moral, economic and social rights, with specific reference to income and social security, and the special provisions that should be made for the unique situation of the Performing Arts Practitioner in Ireland.


ii. The Performing Arts Practitioner - past and present: Centre stage in Irish history

The professional Performing Arts Practitioner has always played a central role in the performance of the Irish nation itself. In ancient Gaelic society, the bard or file occupied an honoured place, was not only a source of wisdom and learning, but was considered important enough to rank with political leaders in terms of status. As educators, as communicators of the essential values of the people, the fili were as much performers as composers of verse. They fulfilled a role very much like that of the present day professional actor: breathing life into words, entertaining, enlightening and educating their audience, and thereby re-enforcing the identity of the community, and strengthening its sense of itself.

In later times, the Sean a Chaoi took over the role of the fili.  In a time when many were not yet literate, the Sean a Chaoi performed and recounted the myths and stories of the people, thereby preserving what otherwise would have been lost. With other performers, like Sean-nos singers and travelling players, the Sean a Chaoi were honoured in society for their skills, for their ability to entertain, and for the insights and inspiration they offered their audience.

In more recent times too the Performing Arts Practitioner has played a vital role in Irish life and in the birth of the modern Irish State. The 1916 Rising may well have been dubbed the poet's revolution, but the credit may just as well have gone to actors, so many of those involved in the rebellion were involved in the performing arts. Patrick Pearse and Countess Markievicz were one-time actors, as were Hannah Sheehy Skeffington, Maud Gonne and Douglas Hyde, the latter being the first Irish president and another important moulder of the modern Irish State.

Indeed the performing arts have always had a symbiotic relationship with the political culture of Ireland, as they had with the literary and artistic cultural renaissance, which in turn contributed to the move towards independence. The originally explosive reception that met plays like The Playboy of the Western World and The Plough and the Stars are evidence of the interlinked relationship of the literary, the artistic and the political that has always existed in Ireland.

The role of the theatre in the struggle for political and cultural freedom in Ireland cannot be underestimated. The plays of John Millington Synge, of W.B. Yeats and Sean O'Casey played a vital role in the cultural revival. Indeed, the effect of these works was so great that Yeats posed himself the question, many years later, about his play Cathleen Ni Houlihan, 'Did that play I wrote send out certain men the English shot? '

Yet while the Sean a Chaoi, and other Performing Arts Practitioners central to the Celtic renaissance, effected change and contributed to the national culture at home, in the decades that followed independence men and women of the theatre won for Ireland an esteemed name internationally. Names like Michael MacLiammoir, Siobhan McKenna, Jimmy O’Dea and F.J. McCormick are still known and synonymous with Ireland, many years after their deaths. The achievements of the Abbey Theatre, the Gate Theatre, Druid, Macnas, Rough Magic, and many, many more, are testament to the positive input that Performing Arts Practitioners have had on the image of Ireland abroad.

Consider the fame that performers like Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, Brendan Gleeson, Brenda Fricker, Stephen Rea, Colm Meaney and Fiona Shaw have brought to Ireland. The number of Performing Arts Practitioners that have brought honour and fame to Ireland is staggering for a country of its size. Artists like Richard Harris, Ray McAnally, Peter O’Toole and Donal McCann have long been ambassadors of Ireland, just as in more recent times film Directors like Jim Sheridan, Thaddeus O’Sullivan, Cathal Black, Pat O'Connor and Neil Jordan, Designers such as Josie McAvin, Consolata Boyle, Bob Crowley and Rupert Murray and Theatre Directors such as Garry Hynes have. Movies like In the Name of the Father and The Commitments were seen far and wide.  Plays by Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson and Marina Carr have toured to far-flung corners. The books of people like James Joyce, Roddy Doyle and John McGahern are on the shelves of libraries and bookshops all over the world. The contribution of such people to the economic success of Ireland cannot be underestimated. In a time when tourism is our second biggest earner, the projection of a positive image of Ireland on both stage and screen brings real economic benefits. When Brenda Fricker picks up an Oscar for My Left Foot, when an American audience watch Neil Jordan's Michael Collins or John Houston's The Dead, when Marie Mullen or Anna Manahan takes a Tony in Broadway, the message of Ireland has reached a bigger audience than any marketing campaign ever could hope to.

The same can be said of Ireland's musicians. If The Beatles were the greatest ambassadors that Britain ever had, then surely U2 must be ours. When performers like Sinead O'Connor take home a Grammy, when Donal Lunny, Clannad or Christy Moore perform to crowds from San Francisco to Shanghai, when Riverdance is seen all over the world or when Van Morrison, The Cranberries or the Chieftains go on tour, the genius of our performers is an advertisement for Ireland itself. When people from other countries have heard Ireland's music, when they’ve seen Ireland's films and watched Ireland's theatre, it is then that they will want to come and meet Ireland's people. The massive contribution the performing arts have made to the Celtic Tiger is almost incalculable.


iii. The Performing Arts Practitioner Today: The need to nurture

Because of the important contribution that Performing Arts Practitioners have made to this country it is important that they be nurtured as an important human resource and as a vital creative force in national life. If our Performing Arts Practitioners are neglected their creative potential will suffer and our cultural life will be much poorer as a result. Any resource that is neglected or taken for granted will suffer. The same is true of the creativity of our Performing Arts Practitioners. Performing Arts Practitioners need the appropriate space and conditions to do the important work that they have dedicated their lives to. Their contribution needs to be fostered, cared for and nourished. By nurturing our Performing Arts Practitioners their importance to all spheres of Irish life can be acknowledged.


iv. The Status of the Performing Arts Practitioner: Reality versus perception

Unfortunately our Performing Arts Practitioners are not being nurtured. While the public might believe that some of our better-known actors are quite well off, the reality is something very different. It is not an exaggeration to say that the majority of Irish Performing Arts Practitioners live lives of hardship. In return for a life of dedication to his or her profession, of years honing his or her skills and working to improve his or her proficiency as a performer, most Irish Performing Arts Practitioners receive very little. What is regrettable is that many of the difficulties that our Performing Arts Practitioners encounter are very easily reversible.

What may not be widely known is that most theatre actors are being paid less than €400 a week when in employment. But beyond the matter of a basic living wage, Performing Arts Practitioners in Ireland are at a disadvantage in areas such as social welfare, pension provision, eligibility for local authority housing, eligibility for the medical card, in seeking to avail of mortgages and insurance, and in many other areas where other professions do not encounter the same kind of difficulties.

 This is largely due to the unique situation of the professional Performing Arts Practitioner. To understand these difficulties and how they may be remedied it is first of all necessary to understand the unique nature of the Performing Arts Practitioner's work.


v The Unique Nature of the Performing Arts Practitioner's Work

As in most other professions, Performing Arts Practitioners have given a lifetime commitment to their chosen field. They have studied and trained over many years to achieve a certain level of skill as performers, and they continue throughout their professional lives to maintain their craft and update and improve their skills, through experience and through further training.

The professional Performing Arts Practitioner is also like any other professional in that his or her work is on-going, as an essential part of his or her life, and is something he or she pursues day-to-day and over many years. As in any other profession, the working life of professional Performing Arts Practitioners demands a full-time commitment if they are to excel and become accomplished in their chosen profession. The commitment involved demands hard work and rigorous professional standards things that are only possible through a single-minded and full-time approach to their occupation.

However, unlike other professions, the profession of the Performing Arts Practitioner is unique in that periods of intense full employment are interspersed by intervals where the artist is not in paid employment but is involved in the search for a new contract. This period of apparent unemployment not only involves the search for the next contract, which itself demands a full time commitment, but may also involve maintaining and updating skills, further training, or involvement in other activities, such as attending work shops, attending movement and voice classes, or attending auditions and interviews, very often at short notice.

In addition, the Performing Arts Practitioner may be engaged in short-term radio, television and voice-over work between longer contracts, also at short notice, which necessitates the artist remaining available for work when such work arises.It should also be noted that, as many Performing Arts Practitioners earn less than the average industrial wage when under contract, their dedication is to a career that yields very little in terms of personal financial return. This, coupled with the unique and sporadic nature of the work, leads to many of the problems that the Performing Arts Practitioner encounters. Surely a profession with such a unique nature requires special provisions in matters of taxation. This is a creative force that has to be protected.


vi. Extend the Artists Tax Exemption to Professional Performing Arts Practitioners

Under Section 195 of the Taxes Consolidation Act, 1997, creative artists who are deemed by the Revenue Commissioners to have produced original and creative works of cultural and artistic merit are exempt from paying tax on earnings derived from such works in the year in which the claim is made. This tax exemption should be extended to cover an exemption from income tax on the earnings of professional Performing Arts Practitioners in any given year, with earnings up to €100,000 per annum (index-linked) being tax-free. 

The current situation discriminates against Performing Arts Practitioners because their work is not considered to be ' creative' in the sense that the production of a book or a play or a painting is considered to be 'creative' . Not only is the work of the Performing Arts Practitioner manifestly creative, but also it is of equal 'cultural' and 'artistic merit' to anything that the ' creative' artist produces. A play or film simply cannot exist without the creative and interpretative work of the Performing Arts Practitioner. Each exponent of the performing arts breathes life into the words of an author and in addition brings their own unique interpretation to the work. It is clear that the Performing Arts Practitioner is an essential element in the creative processes of theatre, film, television drama and radio drama, as well as in all the other media that an actor brings his or her skills to. The fact that most Performing Arts Practitioners spend periods out of work, coupled with the fact that most Performing Arts Practitioners’ earnings are so low, adds a further argument in favour of the artist’s tax exemption being extended to Performing Arts Practitioners.

 


Conclusion

This proposal offers a practical way in which the status of Practitioners in the Performing Arts could be improved in Ireland. The time is long overdue when the Performing Arts Practitioners' significant and positive contribution to the life of the country is again honoured and nurtured. Not only are creative artists rightly given recognition for their contribution to our current economic and cultural renaissance, but it is important that we remember the historical role that Performing Arts Practitioners have played in Irish society, and more important again that we nurture their talent and creative force so that it proves to be a continued valuable asset for the future.


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