Richard Boyd Barrett
Dún Laoghaire · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“It is absolutely incredible that about 50% to 57% of all professional artists in this country live on or below the poverty line - three times the level of poverty in Irish society generally.”
“On a global level, the consumption of electricity by data centres is due to go up elevenfold by 2030. They are hoovering up the water resources and electricity resources of the planet. There will not be much human creativity, art or music if we have no water and no energy. That is what is going on with these people.”
“St. Joseph's Centre in Shankill is the largest care home dedicated solely to dementia care in the country. SIPTU members feel compelled to take industrial action tomorrow because of the failure of St. John of God's to recognise the work and duties that they do.”
“These people actually want to replace human beings and human creativity with AI. That would literally be the road to disaster for humanity. Some people think about AI as if it is cutting edge and the most advanced thing possible, but AI is like the Neanderthal.”
“Against that background, we are seeing these billionaires who run AI looking to steal en masse all of the artistic and creative output of humanity and to profit from it. The artists rightly are asking what the Government is going to do to prevent them making a bad situation for most artists and performers even worse.”
“I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for bringing this motion forward. As Deputy Paul Murphy indicated, People Before Profit is very happy to support and commend all the artists, organisations, musicians and so on who are campaigning to bring this forward.”
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“You cannot apply for the moving in allowance until you get your keys, even though she was allocated the house before Christmas. That does not make sense. That is just one example. As soon as you can confirm you have a place to move into and you are eligible for the moving in allowance, you should be able to get it there and then and not have to wait until you are in with the keys, which means either you have to continue to stay in your old place and pay two rents, which happens to some people, or, for weeks, you and your kids are going around with no carpets, no fridge and no this, that or the other. By the way, the heating was not working when she moved in either.”
“I appreciate that response from the Minister and I accept it. These payments come under exceptional needs, essentially. If I might take the opportunity in my second supplementary contribution to raise another issue under exceptional needs, albeit under the same sort of general heading, there is the moving-in payment for people when they are allocated a house. There is a problem with that. I will give an example. Katie and her family got an allocation due to a transfer from a terrible situation just before Christmas, but she cannot apply for the moving in allowance. She is delighted about her new place and just moved in yesterday, but all that was in the house was two mattresses and a fridge. That is where she, her kids and her partner had to sleep.”
“These limits have to be reviewed upwards, even if it is a relatively small number, as the Minister has outlined. A figure of €52 million still means a lot of people are getting it, so these limits need to be reviewed upwards.”
“Yes. I know there is some flexibility and discretion, so I accept that. The maximum limits as set down by the Department, though, have not been adjusted for years and they are completely out of line with where rents are actually at. I have had cases where it has been true that, eventually, after some difficulty, anxiety and concern for people, you sometimes get them sorted. I take the point that most people have moved onto HAP. These temporary, emergency, special or exceptional needs payments, where for one reason or another people are not on HAP, are very important to the people who get them. They should not, though, be the starting point in a context where the limits do not make any sense. They need to be reviewed. At the moment, they are almost meaningless. This is the case in Dublin, Kildare, the commuter areas and so on.”
“The maximum limits on rent supplement have not been reviewed for years, as far as I know. They are ridiculously low compared to where rents have gone. For example, if a couple or a single parent on rent supplement has three children, you cannot rent a place in Dublin for more than €1,300. Now, there is no such thing as a rent of €1,300 for a family home of that size in Dublin. These limits are crazy and they have to be reviewed upwards. I will give more examples of situations in my supplementary contribution.”
“Does the Minister of State agree that is imperialism and should be condemned, opposed and challenged every bit as much as the condemnation that has come freely about what Putin has done in Ukraine?”
“To frame what I said in the initial statements as a question to the Minister of State, and I would appreciate a response, this follows on from the last question about Trump. The Government has repeatedly and rightly condemned Putin for believing he has the right to decide what happens in states around Russia, including what he has done with the illegal occupation of Ukraine. The Government has condemned that and called it imperialism. Will the Government condemn Trump's threats against his neighbours and the national security strategy his Administration has published which states it has the right to decide what goes on in South America and Venezuela and to threaten to take the easy way or the hard way in respect of Greenland? Whatever one may think about the Venezuelan Government, Donald Trump does not have the right to decide it.”
“Starmer is not representing the views of the vast majority of English people in doing that and now young people could die as a result. Does the Government have anything to say as these people face their possible death?”
“Some of the hunger strikers in England, who are in prison and have been designated as terrorists by the British Government because they protested against British complicity with the genocidal massacre that Israel is conducting against the Palestinian people, have now been on hunger strike for more than 70 days - they are very near death - some for more than 66 days. Whatever the Minister of State thinks about their protest or about hunger strike as a tactic, these people were acting in good conscience against what they saw as crimes against humanity and they are facing death. Has the Irish Government made any representations whatsoever to the Starmer Government? The reason they are in prison is that he has designated people who did not hurt anyone as terrorists.”
“First, I have to correct the record. I said explicitly that I condemn the Putin regime. I will do the same about the Chinese regime by the way, which is an authoritarian, brutal regime. I also said the Maduro regime was authoritarian and undemocratic. Is that good enough for Deputy O'Flynn? He should not misrepresent me.”
“Trump is nearly provoking a civil war in his own country. He has no role to play in Iran. The people of Iran should decide their own future. I stand with the protesters there but the hypocrisy of the European Union and Trump is absolutely stunning. It is disgraceful that our Government continues to give cover to it.”
“I condemn absolutely the killings by the Iranian Government of protesters protesting about the cost of living, corruption and repression in Iran. The Government of Iran should be condemned and should stop killing protesters. It should engage with people fighting to reform that country and end the media and social media blackout, which is a disgrace. It is equally clear, however, that Trump has no role. Trump has threatened Iran militarily, while he is also threatening Greenland, attacking Venezuela and arming the genocide in Gaza. He has no part to play in Iran. He is a hypocrite who is only interested in oil and influence. He is killing protesters in his own country, having defended the assassination of a mother of three who was driving away from an ICE officer, and there are paramilitaries running around arresting people in US cities.”
“They fail to condemn the shocking fact that Germany, Britain and France continue to provide weapons and so on to the Israeli regime, which is guilty of genocide and continues to deny aid getting into Gaza. I will get on to Iran shortly but at the same time that this Government is calling for escalating sanctions against Iran, it is simultaneously saying it has to dilute the occupied territories Bill, it is not sure if the Bill should include services and it is not sure when it will pass. We are two years into a genocidal massacre, when the Israeli Government is in the dock for crimes against humanity and genocide, but still there are no sanctions. Worse still, the Government's partners in Europe continue to arm the regime that is committing this. Apparently, however, our Government is horrified by the actions of the Iranian Government.”
“There is silence from the same people who get up and describe as unacceptable what Putin is doing, which, by the way, it is. There is a failure to call out the continuing arming by Trump, America and leading EU states of the genocidal massacre that continues against the people of Gaza and Palestine. Just to rub salt into the horrific wounds, Donald Trump invites Netanyahu over for new year's celebrations in his mansion. This man is evil. Putin is evil and Trump is evil but do European governments apply the same principles and standards to these two people? Not at all. They continue to tolerate it, be quite about it or, worse, reinforce the hypocrisy.”
“When Donald Trump and his Administration produce a national security strategy that says they have the right to decide what happens in the whole of South America, Canada and Greenland, there is silence from the European Union. Whatever one may think about Maduro, and I do not think much of his authoritarian and corrupt regime, Donald Trump has no right to go in to Venezuela and militarily attack it, kidnap its President and his wife and kill hundreds of people in the process. Trump has no right whatsoever to Greenland or to threaten it and to talk about the easy way or the hard way. He has no right to threaten, as he has done, Cuba, Mexico and so on or to impose an American sphere of influence. In a strategy document Trump explicitly reasserts that the Monroe Doctrine applies to the whole American Continent.”
“As I said to Ursula von der Leyen when she came to this Chamber in 2024, the inconsistency, hypocrisy and double standards of the European Union and, by and large, our own Government when it comes to foreign policy are stunning, shocking and unacceptable. The Government opens its statement, as is often the case - understandably - with reference to Ukraine. It rightly says that Putin is not interested in peace, he is an imperialist and it is a brutal, illegal and aggressive war. I have heard the Taoiseach describe Putin as imperialist, which is absolutely right. Putin believes he has the right to a sphere of influence around Russia, which he has no right to, and consequently denies the right to self-determination.”
“What we need is more public investment to provide the infrastructure necessary for water, not the privatisation of blue gold, and water is the blue gold of the 21st century. There are people who are out to make profits from a resource where the infrastructure is not provided properly. That is what we actually need, not privatisation. Following water charges campaign, which was about defeating the plans for the privatisation of water, we got a commitment that there would be a referendum to keep the water infrastructure in public ownership. Where is that referendum?”
“Irish Water said it only has enough money to provide the infrastructure for 30,000 and not 60,000 houses. There is no extra money and the motion before us does not even mention extra money. What the motion does say is that if Irish Water cannot deliver, we should bring in private developers to do it. No, we should not. Part of the problem with Irish Water is that it is already backdoor privatisation. If we look at half the work that Irish Water does, we will see it is private companies doing it - GMC and other contractors. The problem is we need a public system. We are losing the expertise we have in the local authorities, namely, the expertise of the local authority workers.”
“There is a lack of communication from Irish Water when problems arise with leaks and boil water notices. We could go through the list. The playbook for the privatisation of water services, or any service, is to run it down so it does not work and prove that it does not work with lots of timelines. Where have we seen this before? We have seen it with special needs and so on, when people say we have to have a six-month timeline during which the resources are not provided and the teachers and workers are not provided. This is why I have the problem with the motion put forward by Independent Ireland. It does not mention extra money. We were against the setting up of Irish Water because we believed it was backdoor privatisation of local authorities that have the expertise and so on. It does not mention the extra money that is needed.”
“Finally, they have started to get moving on them but there is a big delay with publicly-owned sites in areas like Rathmichael and the Old Conna Road - big publicly-owned sites for public housing with no water infrastructure put in. It takes years for that to happen. In Dublin Bay, no swim notices regularly go up. Why? It is because of a decrepit Victorian infrastructure that was identified decades ago where surface water, when it rains heavily, mixes with sewage. The sewage goes straight into Dublin Bay, so people are swimming in Dublin Bay in raw sewage. Again, this has been identified for decades. It is still not dealt with in terms of the problems at Poolbeg, which is massively under capacity for a growing population in the urban centre.”
“I thank Independent Ireland for bringing forward this important motion on Irish Water. It has identified many of the problems, which I think we all agree on. I have to say, however, that I radically disagree with the conclusions it draws about what needs to be done. Ultimately, its motion ends up being a blueprint for the further privatisation of water services, which is the problem, not the solution. On the things we do agree on, however, the lack of adequate infrastructure to build the houses we need is absolutely outrageous. We cannot address the housing crisis unless we provide the water infrastructure. In my area, we have been calling this out on big publicly-owned sites for years.”
“Privatisation makes it all even worse because Go-Ahead does not give the same decent pay and conditions to people, so it cannot hold onto mechanics and bus drivers. As a result, it does not even have the people to operate buses on the route. It is a shambles and the Government has to do something about it, not just say it is terrible.”
“I do not even have time to go through the number of issues I have but I will try to get some of them out. With BusConnects, many areas were abandoned, particularly working-class areas with older populations. Finglas east no longer has any connection to the north inner city whatsoever. Ballinteer no longer has any connection to Dún Laoghaire. These are older populations. Why does the Minister of State think people then get into cars, which increases congestion? The 46A and the 145 services, which are now the E spine routes, going past UCD, no longer have any connection with Heuston Station, where many of the students come to the universities from. It is crazy. We said this. Buses on many of the spines crossing the city are guaranteed to get caught up in congestion. We said in advance that these things would not work.”
“The National Transport Authority, NTA, explains ghost buses as being a result of longer routes and cross-city routes. We told it that when BusConnects was first designed. Some of the worst examples I am getting are in my own area. These are the east spine routes, which used to be the 46A and other routes. My colleague, Councillor Conor Reddy from Finglas, says it is the same with the F spine, which affects Finglas, Tallaght and so on. In the first week of the F spine in his area, he got 350 emails with complaints about buses not turning up and so on. The question is what we are going to do about it. I have not got time to go into it, but Go-Ahead is performing even worse than Dublin Bus. The whole thing is an absolute shambles. Does the Government recognise the problem? What is it going to do about it?”
“Late buses, ghost buses, cancelled buses, buses that go past you because they are packed at peak hours and areas that have been completely abandoned: BusConnects is a shambles. Drivers are stressed to bits with the present box system. They are being harassed and disciplined because they cannot meet ridiculous timetables, with unrealistic routes and timetable requirements. It is an absolute shambles for commuters trying to use the bus system to get to work, for older people, disabled people and students, and for bus drivers who are harassed to bits. All of that is compounded by the privatisation of the system and apps that tell different information. If you go on the Transport for Ireland app, it tells you one thing, bustimes.org tells you something else and reality tells you something else again. It is absolute chaos.”
“It is ambivalent because it is ideologically committed to this idea of free trade when what it should be committed to is fair trade and protecting the livelihoods of farmers, the environment and workers’ rights instead of selling out on those things.”
“The EU is giving a man who has openly declared a war on climate action and all the sorts of standards that Europe says it wants to protect but does not actually protect a way in to encourage the race to the bottom. I am in favour of trade but it should be fair trade that is about levelling up rather than a race to the bottom. This is about the race to the bottom and it is a sell-out. In the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond’s speech, he is ambivalent. I hate it to say, “I told you so”, but this was the reason we opposed the qualified majority voting in the Nice treaty, the Lisbon treaty and the Single European Act. If we had not given up the right to veto these things, we would be able to do something about this. The truth is that the Government is ambivalent about this stuff.”
“How does it make any sense for the livelihood of our farmers? Why would it even enter into a negotiation like that, other than to serve the interests of big manufacturers like German car manufacturers that are willing to sacrifice the climate, farmers and so on in order to pursue their interests? In respect of how this connects with the Trump stuff, Venezuela is temporarily out of Mercosur but if Trump gets control - he now claims he has control of Venezuela after taking out Maduro, whatever Members may think about Maduro – he has made it clear that he wants to undermine all of those standards which the European Union claims it represents. He has asserted the right, under national security policy, to take control of South America and decide the policies of governments in South America.”
“The Mercosur deal is a sell-out of farmers in this country. It is a sell-out on the fight for climate action and the fight against deforestation. It is a sell-out on the protection of workers’ rights. It is a recipe for the race to the bottom and completely exposes the agenda of the big powers that dominate the European Union, which are only interested in promoting the interests of the big car manufacturers and the big multinationals at the expense of ordinary working people, small farmers and the environment. That is the truth about this deal. From an environmental point of view and the point of view of our farmers, why on earth was the European Union negotiating a deal to get 99,000 more tonnes of beef to Europe when we can produce that beef here? How does that make any sense from a climate point of view?”
“As I said on national radio last Friday, I honestly do not understand why the police have not gone into X and started arresting the people who run it in its European headquarters. Any fair reading of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act or, for that matter, the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act will show that the peddling of these sexualised images of children is a criminal offence. The people who are facilitating this child pornographic abusive imagery should be under arrest. Why is the Government soft pedalling on that? The law is there. If it needs to be tweaked, sure, but to be honest, any reasonable reading of the existing legislation says X is guilty of a crime and arrests should be made. The police should be in its headquarters.”
“If we are going to be consistent in our principles, in standing up for human rights and standing up for self-determination, as well as calling out the violent repression of the Iranian regime, we have to call out Donald Trump's warmongering and naked imperialism across the globe.”
“We should all declare our solidarity with Iranian people protesting against rampant inflation, corruption and the violent repression they are facing at the hands of the Iranian regime. The regime should stop killing protesters and should lift the censorship that it has imposed on Iranian people fighting for legitimate change and reform in their country. However, we should be equally clear in saying that Donald Trump and the American military have no right to threaten Iran or any other regime, as they did with Venezuela, kidnapping its leader whatever we may think of Maduro, and I do not think much of him. They have no right to threaten Greenland, Cuba or Mexico, or, as Trump is threatening as we speak, possible military action against Iran.”
“Stagehands are in the High Court which found in their favour that their rights under the fixed-term workers Act are not being vindicated because of the DAC structure being abused by film producers in a way that means workers in the industry can never accumulate rights under fixed-term workers legislation. On buyout contracts, Equity made absolutely clear it wants PACT-Equity agreement. It is compliant with EU legislation. It has said this repeatedly. Whoever is telling the Minister they do not want it is not telling the truth.”
“On the work of crew, this survey was responded to by 800 workers. Has the Minister or Deputy Byrne seen it? No, because Screen Ireland has seen it but they have not published it because it paints a very unflattering picture. The words used by the film workers include, "Producers' reluctance to give the crew their full needs", "night shoots and rest days that aren't paid properly", "tight schedules", "long hours", "being hired as a trainee when there are no leads or assistants", "overly long work day", "budget constraints", "ageism", "professional development and progression not happening", "grade progression", "stress and hours", "continuity of employment", "pay", "stress" - it goes on. It was suppressed, effectively, because the people who did this survey do not want the Minister or anybody else to know about the outcome.”
“Is the Minister or the Department aware that Screen Guilds of Ireland, which is funded by Screen Ireland, did a survey of people in the film industry in the summer but never published the outcome? Initially, very few people knew about it but when they found out, 800 film workers painted a very unflattering picture of conditions in the film industry. I have it in front of me. I will read excerpts if I get a chance. It was never published or given to the union. Stagehands recently won cases in the High Court. Equity will tell the Minister, despite what he is being told, that their fight against buyout contracts is ongoing because producers are not responding seriously.”
“The Minister's Department gives out section 481. The idea that he is not responsible for policing the quality employment and training condition is ridiculous. We need joined-up thinking. Everybody is playing pass the parcel - the Department of arts, the Department of finance and the Department of enterprise - and nobody is responsible. Therefore, workers are blacklisted, overworked, stressed and not treated properly. Their rights are not vindicated. Actors, screenwriters and so on are forced to sign buyout contracts which essentially force them to sign away their residuals. If anybody kicks up, they are kicked out of the industry. That is the actuality of the industry.”
“There is €125 million a year, I think, or probably higher, in section 481 film tax support for the film producers of this country. You can add in another €20 million or €30 million from Screen Ireland. It is a lot of money; billions over several decades. Is the Minister enforcing - I believe he is not - the quality employment and training condition? It is about guaranteeing decent quality employment and training for the people who work in the industry. In truth, actors are not being looked after in terms of their royalties and are being forced to sign buyout contracts, and crew are not having their rights vindicated. The Minister needs to monitor and police this properly.”
“The €100 million to which the Tánaiste referred represents 200 houses in Dublin. That number would only house a fraction of the number of families who are homeless and who need to get out of homeless accommodation. The amount being provided is not enough. It is in contrast with in excess of €1 billion the Government gave away in the form of €600 million for military expenditure, research and development tax credits of €305 million, €681 million for the VAT reduction in the hospitality sector and the reduction in respect of apartments that will amount to €390 million in one year. Big giveaways for developers, big business and the military are in contrast to the amount allocated to deal with family homelessness,. More needs to be done.”
“One third of those who are homeless were evicted from the private rental sector. Quite simply, they would not be in emergency accommodation and the children to whom I refer would not be suffering this hardship if the Government had not lifted the no-fault eviction ban. We have an emergency. We have the highest level of child homelessness ever. If that is not an emergency, I honestly do not know what is. The Government should reinstate the ban. I am glad there is an acknowledgement regarding three-bedroom units. We warned the Government about this. The demand for social housing was not taking account of people who are on transfer lists, HAP and RAS. It previously understated the extent of family homelessness or the number of people in danger of it. We need to address that.”
“Developers and Government have prioritised one- and two-bedroom units instead of building family homes or buying them, if necessary, to keep children out of homelessness. Policy change could address the misery and hardship many people, particularly children, are suffering.”
“Caoimhe and her three children, agreed nine, four and one, are in their second period of homelessness. Her nine-year-old, her daughter, who is becoming increasingly isolated from her friends because she cannot have people over, has asked on her Christmas list for a place called home. I could add cases of women who are experiencing domestic violence and who are terrified of their partners but who have nowhere to go because there are no three-bedroom houses available. What is the Government going to do about these people? Some 32% of those who are homeless are homeless because they were evicted from the private rental sector because the Government lifted the eviction ban. Many of the people I have mentioned could have their cases resolved if there were enough three-bedroom houses available.”
“A further 25% are spending their third or fourth Christmas in a row in such accommodation. I want to put a human face on this. Saoirse and her children are spending their second Christmas in emergency accommodation. Her son is refusing to stay with her in the accommodation because it is not a home or a proper place to live. Now mother and son are increasingly separated. She has tried to take her life twice because, as she explained to me while bawling crying in front of me, she blames herself for her homelessness plight, which, of course, she is not to blame for. Julianne and her two children, aged 15 and ten, are spending their second Christmas sharing one bedroom. She is sharing a bed with her ten-year-old son and her daughter is refusing to go to school. Julianne is also trying to hold down a job.”
“I corroborate the call to act on behalf of the Oireachtas TV workers. This issue has been raised with the Government on several occasions. It is shameful that the workers are laid off during the summer and at Christmas, particularly when they are responsible for broadcasting the proceedings in these Chambers. Christmas should be a happy time. For many, it will be a happy and joyful time. As has been said, however, it is a time of very serious challenges, hardship or sadness for many. I include in that the 16,766 people living in emergency accommodation, those who are threatened with homelessness or people who find themselves in crisis housing circumstances. In particular, I refer here to the 5,274 children living in emergency accommodation, 50% of whom are spending their second Christmas in a row in such accommodation.”
“I welcome the British ambassador and wish everybody, including our guests, a happy Christmas. I wish to use this opportunity to pass a message to the British Government through the ambassador, namely that something urgently needs to be done about the Palestine Action hunger strikers whose lives are in danger because they protested against the genocide in Gaza and are being treated in an absolutely brutal fashion.”
“It was a sport of the nobility - a sadistic sport of the nobility. It is barbaric and uncivilised. How the Minister could possibly defend it is beyond me. The irony, as has already been said, is that our colonial masters, the British, who developed this, have actually banned it themselves. For some bizarre reason, however, a small group of unrepresentative people, who do not represent the majority opinion in this country, have decided to try to defend this colonial elite practice. It is bizarre. I think the Minister should step back from this and reflect the views of the majority of the people in this country to end this barbaric practice.”
“He said there were things in the Bill that are not in the Bill, and then he implied that, really, this was part of a wider agenda of opposing rural pursuits, which it absolutely is not. However, the Minister did not actually defend it. He did not defend it because he knows it is indefensible. It is utterly indefensible. Please tell me how it is a legitimate form of the sport to tear a frightened animal limb from limb with a pack of dogs and a big gang of people on horseback. It is nothing of the sort. As for the idea that it has anything to do with pest control, seriously, it has to be the most inefficient form of pest control possibly imaginable - you get a gang of horses, dogs and all the associated things to chase one fox. The Minister is seriously putting that forward as a form of pest control. It has nothing to do with that.”
“Of course, the genocide of the Irish people during what is known as the Famine was linked to an ambition by our colonial masters to drive the people off the land and clear the land. It was an exaggerated version of the enclosure movement, where the rich wanted to drive ordinary people off the land and clear it for their so-called pursuits. It is ironic, in a way, that those who defend this practice, although it is interesting that the Minister does not actually defend the practice-----”
“I thank Deputy Coppinger for bringing the Bill forward. I am very happy to support it. I love sport. I am passionate about sport but I find it had to hard to understand how anybody could gain entertainment from a large group of people on horseback, with a pack of dogs, pursuing a frightened animal, and then watching and celebrating as that frightened animal is torn to pieces by dogs. That is not a sport. That is just an exercise in cruelty and barbarism. As has been said, this is not an ancient Irish rural tradition. It is a colonial pursuit that was developed by the British nobility. As for the point about the contrast between the enforced starvation of the Irish people during the Famine and the expansion of so-called rural pursuits by the British nobility, there is a connection.”
“That is buttons compared with the surpluses and the money that is available to the Government. We can save this vital space. If we are serious about a commitment to arts and culture, this is a very small amount of money to save a lot of artists and to do something for the north inner city and that community.”
“For the Department of arts to wash its hands of a vibrant and vital artistic and cultural space, home to hundreds of artists, is crazy. Whatever about the finer points of demarcation between the OPW, the Department of Finance and local authorities, for the Department of arts to be indifferent or to say, "It is nothing to do with us" is not good enough. It needs to be banging heads together. A crisis meeting is happening this evening in The Complex for artists and people from the local community. A marathon gig is planned for 17, 18 and 19 December, with 45 bands and performers. The Complex has 15,000 signatures behind it. This is a huge hit for the local, artistic, musical and theatrical communities. All that is required is a commitment of €6 million over four years.”