I rise today to echo the concerns raised by other members of both Houses on the recent Tickets.ie fiasco where the company in question went into liquidation with no warning. Even the festival organisers were unable to receive the ticket revenue that has already been paid by thousands of attendees. It is estimated that over €1 million collected on behalf of over five major music festivals has now vanished, leaving the organisers on the hook and unable to pay the staff, suppliers and musicians. Several major festivals have been affected by this, such as the Liberty Music Festival in Thurles, the Rory Gallagher festival in County Donegal, which was already highlighted by Senator Boyle, and Rockathon in County Meath. These are not small fringe or independent events. These festivals have become a cultural institution to attendees and artists and provide a huge annual windfall for the communities that host them, boosting local businesses.

With the future of these festivals in question, all of this is now in danger. There are, therefore, three major actions that I call on the Government to undertake. The first is to make emergency supports available to the festivals the question. This is not a matter of handouts. It is a matter of keeping alive a diverse and thriving range of festivals across the country in a moment of crisis and preventing the potential ripple effect that their collapse will have on our rural communities and our cultural sector. I feel this is only fair because the Government bears some responsibility for this mess in its failure to regulate the ticket industry, which is my second proposed action. The fact that Tickets.ie has been mishandling millions of euro in revenue without submitting to the Companies Registration Office since 2022, without a tax clearance and with no obligation to ensure the money was underwritten is utterly baffling and must be fixed post haste. I have heard from Councillor Jim Ryan in Thurles that DEAG, the German owner of Tickets.ie, has not been responding to organisers. Finally, I call on our Government to immediately reach out to its German counterparts, whether it is the German Minister of Commerce and Industry or, indeed, our German ambassador to seek a rapid solution.