The ISACS Network fully endorses theNational Campaign for the Arts Pre-Budget Submission as we approach Budget 2025.

ISACS mission is to celebrate, advocate, grow and support Ireland’s Street Arts, Circus and Spectacle sectors. These artforms play a key role in place-making. They are democratic, accessible, inclusive and have the potential to drive social change. Therefore, we call for support, recognition, and trust in the value, power and necessity for investment in the arts, as art, by extension, invests in communities, individuals, in all generations and in our wider civic and economic society.

The NCFA’s Pre-Budget 2025 Submission outlines 12 key points to integrate the arts deeply into Irish society. We fully support each point as outlined below:

  • Support Basic Income

The ISACS Network fully supports the asks for retaining, extending and expanding the Basic Income for the Arts. Our Annual Membership survey shows that half of the respondents earn less than 20K a year in 2023.

  • Invest Meaningfully in the Arts: €160 million in funding to the Arts Council in 2025

We support increasing investment for The Arts Council of Ireland. A higher level of investment would enable us to:

  1. Continue to grow the circus and outdoor arts sector.
  2. Develop opportunities for more circus and outdoor artists.
  3. Bring more quality outdoor arts and circus experiences to a wide range of people.
  4. Open the door for more diverse artists to get involved in circus and outdoor arts.
  • Bring Irish Arts to the World: €10 million in funding to Culture Ireland in 2025

We support the ask of  €10 million in funding to Culture Ireland as it is instrumental to the growth and promotion of the artists working in our sector. In 2023, with support from Culture Ireland, we invited 12 international programmers to Waterford Spraoi and 5 to the National Circus Festival of Ireland. This resulted in 8 Irish artists’ showcases hosted in 2024 at European festivals,  supported by Culture Ireland, featuring over 17 Irish contemporary circus and street companies.

  • Nurture Communities: Retain current funding of Creative Ireland to 2027

We also support retaining the current funding of Creative Ireland to 2027, including the Shared Island initiative. This has particular importance to us as an example of a 32-county organisation and also to many artists who regularly work cross-border as well as with our neighbours in the UK. With Creative Ireland support, our Circus Explored programme has introduced young people all over the island to the fun and creativity of circus skills, and fostered cross-border connections and exchange.

  • Develop Housing Initiatives

Over the last few years, the worsening housing and cost of living crisis has made it increasingly prohibitive for artists to live and work in Ireland.  We ask once more for local government to ensure that a percentage of all social and affordable housing be attributed to artists and arts workers, alongside studio/rehearsal space for creation. We also ask that the Dept of Finance develop new systems with existing financial institutions to deliver more flexibility for citizens in Ireland to access a fair mortgage to meet their needs and their means, despite employment contracts or lack thereof.

  • Make Space for the Arts

The Arts Council-commissioned Circus Building Infrastructure Report (2022) evidences that existing building-based circus infrastructures in Ireland do not adequately support the growing number of professional and community-based activities taking place in the country. We believe that adequate spaces to create and present work are necessary for sustainable, accessible, and safe circus practices in Ireland.

  • Remove Barriers for Disabled Artists and Arts Workers

We endorse the NCFA ask in total. Furthermore, the ISACS Network in 2023, conducted an EDI survey of the diversity of its membership to better understand the profile and needs of our sector. The issues that respondents raised included a lack of accommodation for a physical disability and stigma surrounding neurodiversity within the respondents’ interactions in the sector. We therefore ask that the Arts Council make the case to other government departments to ensure fair and equitable access to artistic careers and work.

  • Address the Climate Emergency

In 2023, we welcomed the new national policy framework on culture, creativity and climate action. Still, we note that this is still due to be published a year later than planned. We ask that practical support be implemented to enable sustainable creation and touring practices and introduce touring incentives by land and sea.

  • Address the Lack of Diversity in the Arts

In our annual membership survey, respondents identified strongly as LGBTQI+, as carers and as living with mental or psychological issues. Among our members at least 15 languages are spoken other than English or Irish. Our respondents generally have at a minimum a primary degree, and almost half earn less than 20K a year. However much more work remains to be done. We therefore support NCFA and their ask to commission research to analyse the diversity of the arts in Ireland, to identify barriers, including social, economic and environmental factors, as well as systemic barriers residing in social protection regulations, which prevent artists and arts workers from all backgrounds from active and equal participation in the arts sector.

  • Implement Insurance Reform

The ISACS Network is a vocal member of the Alliance for Insurance Reform, as sustainable, suitable and affordable insurance continues to be a major issue for our sector. We therefore support the NCFA ask and continue to advocate for insurance reform. Inadequate, inaccessible and unsustainably expensive insurance is a significant issue for artists, arts workers and arts organisations – especially those working in Youth Circus.

  • Support Adequate Research in the Arts

The ISACS Network is currently working to develop research on archives of national interest to our cultural heritage. Most specifically we are working towards a National Archive for Traditional Circus and Fairgrounds, part of Ireland’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage, to deliver an initial mapping of the existent heritage. We, therefore, endorse the NCFA’s ask and additionally call to ensure that the Government commits to new and continued investment by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, the Arts Council and other key funding bodies in essential research into the arts and cultural sector receive the required support, investment, and care to protect them – both from the point of view of their past and also of their future.

  • Implement Taxation Reform

We support the NCFA submission to the Commission on Taxation and Welfare focused on areas that could be easily changed and would have a real and lasting effect on the arts sector. The three areas are VAT recoverability in the live performance sector, the application of the artist tax exemption, and philanthropy.

  •  Reinstate Circus and Funfair Support scheme

This vital scheme, which provided access to education for travelling circus and fairground families, was terminated over 9 years ago and has never been replaced, leaving these children and families severely disadvantaged today. If we are serious about protecting this vital part of our national heritage, we must not alone protect their past, and we must invest in their future.

#SustainTheArts

Help Sustain The Arts with these 3 actions:

1. TALK TO YOUR TD 

Contact your TD (https://www.whoismytd.com) and tell them how important the arts are to you. Read the National Campaign for the Arts Pre-Budget Submission and then to talk to your TDs in your own words about the points that are most relevant to you. Send an email, tag them on social media, call their constituency office.

2. Get the #SustainTheArts message out

Are you an ARTIST, ARTS WORKER or an ARTS ORGANISATION:

  • Share our #SustainTheArts social media images on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, tik tok, Facebook and all your social media channels, using #SustainTheArts and tag your local TDs
  • We’re also asking you to take to social media to share a selfie or an expression of your work and use this text: “My name is… and I am an Artist/Arts Worker”. Again, tag your local TDs (https://www.whoismytd.com) and use #SustainTheArts

Are you an ARTS FAN? If you enjoy the arts, please add your voice to the campaign:

  • Share our #SustainTheArts social media images on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, tik tok, Facebook and all your social media channels, using #SustainTheArts and tag your local TDs
  • Tell us on your social media why you love the arts (the book that changed your life, the film that broke your heart, the gallery you treasure, the music that keeps you company, the performances that give you hope).
  • Tag the NCFA (Twitter: @Campaign4Arts – Facebook: NCFAie – Instagram: @Campaign4Arts).
  • Then tag your TDs (https://www.whoismytd.com) and use #SustainTheArts

3. Spread the Word

Talk to your friends and family about how important the arts are to you and ask them to do points 1 and 2 above

Some useful bits:

Here is a link to the National Campaign for the Arts Pre-Budget Submission.

Here is the email to get in touch if you have ideas or questions contact us here: info@ncfa.ie.

Here is a link to the National Campaign for the Arts Pre-Budget Submission.