Gerry Ryan is about as much an artist as Leo Varadkar is a communist

That is really the point in a nutshell. This decision appears to have been made by some office of the Revenue Commissioners, not known for their tolerance of creativity, nor, come to think of it, for creativity themselves.

Who decides who is an artist and who is not is a very subjective thing, but there are clear instances when artistry cannot be applied, IMO a biography is one such example.

Also note this nugget in the article "It was introduced by the late taoiseach Charles Haughey in 1969 to help struggling artists" - now despite a 10% pay cut, Mr. Ryan is hardly "struggling".

It comes down to an endemic abuse of the spirit of a scheme that was put in place to foster and support the historically rich culture of creativity we have.

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We are "they"

I wonder will artist Conor Casby who recently had his controversial nude paintings of Taoiseach Brian Cowen 'on show' be able to claim this tax exemption? Apparently they could fetch €5,000 each at auction - so says Dublin art dealer Ian Whyte of Whyte's Art Auction House !

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