‘They're lucky we’re not showing up to Merrion Square and saying: "Where's my money?"’
The Arts Council told dancer, actor, and choreographer Stephanie Dufresne and 140 other artists they had been awarded €25,000 — but then it followed up to say the first message had been a mistake.
More than 140 artists who were incorrectly told by the Arts Council that they had won a “life-changing” award worth €25,000 are to meet with council director Maureen Kennelly today as a “first step”.
The artists say the error had a “devastating” impact on them and reflects the precarious circumstances of those trying trying to make a living from the arts.
Musician, producer, and writer Bobby Aherne said it was his fifth time applying for the highly competitive Next Generation Artists’ Award, and so it was “especially overwhelming” to have heard that he won.
“It was probably the greatest news I’d ever received,” he said, adding he had 10 minutes of being “completely bowled over, experiencing every single positive emotion”.
However, shortly after, he, along with 140 other artists, received another email from the Arts Council advising him that it was an error.
“I thought maybe there’d been a typo on the date or something simple like that," he said.
"It didn’t even occur to me that a mistake of this scale could occur."
Big thanks to the Arts Council for emailing me at 4pm to say I'd been awarded a €25,000 grant, and then emailing me ten minutes later to say "whoops, nope, admin error!"
— bobby aherne (@bawwby) June 28, 2023
Dancer, actor, and choreographer Stephanie Dufresne said the error is symptomatic of a larger problem with the Arts Council, being that “double standards exist between what artists are expected to do, and what the Arts Council does”.
“People are really shook,” she said. “I have been intermittently crying for three days.”
Ms Dufresne, a Galway native living in Dublin, said the error is “devastating”, having put 15 hours of work into her application, time which those impacted are saying should be paid to them.
Ms Dufresne said she is in disbelief that a system so “unforgiving and uncompromising” could make an error of this magnitude.
She, along with several others impacted, say that funding applications require artists to “jump through absolute hoops”.
“The Arts Council employees who sent me these mistaken emails have contracts, and they have pensions and salaries and sick pay. I don’t have any of these things. Their mistakes cause devastation but are unlikely to have material effects on their livelihood.
“On the contrary, in the past, I’ve had project applications rendered ineligible because I omitted a CV.
“I have had tense exchanges when creative projects need modification relative to the original funding application.
I’m just so mad and so upset, also because of the landscape at large at the moment for artists,” she said.
Working solely as an artist for the last 12 years, Ms Dufresne said she has never made more than €25,000 in one year: “It’s very difficult to live in one of the most expensive cities in Europe during a housing crisis on €25,000 a year. I have absolutely no security.
“I have spent the last 12 years worrying about rent, worrying about making it month to month. I sublet for a year last year, sleeping in spare beds for weeks at a time, travelling between my parents in Galway and Dublin while working as a performer.
“I’m 33, and I rang banks about a mortgage during the pandemic, and three or four of them just laughed at me and said: ‘Sorry’.
“When we look at nurses and teachers and what they make, these people can’t afford to live in Dublin either,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, society is broken, and the amount of money the Arts Council get is a reflection of that.”
One welcome development is the universal basic income for artists, which Ms Dufresne said she is one of the lucky few to receive.
The scheme, which attracted over 9,000 applicants, began payments last month of €325 per week to 2,000 artists.
She said the basic income, most of which goes towards rent, has changed her life.
“The fact that I know I have that for three years means I have stopped considering emigrating,” she said.
However, Ireland has a way to go before artists can do more than simply “survive”.
Although saying she understands, Ms Dufresne said the pandemic highlighted that artists are at the “bottom of the hierarchy”.
“With the idea of essential workers versus non-essential workers, it was very clear that artists are at the bottom of the hierarchy in terms of our importance,” she said. “Across the board, we’re such an artistic country, and the infrastructure does not reflect that.”
“We’re really punching above our weight in terms of playwrights, in terms of writers, in terms of films and actors, but I would like to see an Ireland where artists are valued and where something like this is not swept under the rug and where people like myself, feel that we can remain in the arts but also, maybe one day own a home and maybe have a family and not be in this constant existential crisis of trying to survive.”
The Arts Council said the error was “regrettable” and that an email was issued to apologise “unreservedly”.
“Our mistake has understandably caused upset and disappointment, and for this, we are truly sorry,” they said.
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