Ms Mary Nash:

I thank the Acting Chair and Senator Warfield. I will work through the questions and if I miss anything they can remind me. I will pick up on the artists' workspaces because that is what a lot of the discussion was about. We are fully aware of the serious issue of the absence of artists' workspaces. The biggest issue of course is in Dublin and Ms Kennelly mentioned the initiative in the port but there are other initiatives. Dublin City Council is bringing forward three or four locations that will become available shortly even as we speak. The Minister allocated €3 million to Dublin City Council for other initiatives so it is looking at where to spend that. Ms Nugent is absolutely right that there are a lot of issues all around the country and at the moment, the Department is engaging with all of the chief executive officers, CEOs, of the larger cities, namely, Limerick, Waterford, Galway, Cork and Kilkenny, about what they want to see or how we could help them provide artists' workspaces.

Moving on to the national cultural institutions, work is ongoing but slower than the Department had hoped. It is easy to say Covid-19 had an impact but it really did. I think there will be a few openings in the National Library of Ireland this year. The art room will open and I know that the Seanad is talking to the National Library about having something there in December. Hopefully the lecture theatre which the Office of Public Works, OPW, is working on with the library will be ready for the Seanad's event in December. The National Archives of Ireland has been tendered and they have been received back by the OPW so there will hopefully be an announcement there shortly. Finally, the Crawford Gallery in Cork has moved ahead as well and I think work might start there next year. We have waited a long time for stuff.

On the local authorities, Ms O'Reilly answered the question about the league table and we local authorities recognise that international investment coming into Ireland looks for vibrant places to build their factories and centres. They will look to the towns and cities where there is a vibrant arts scene, a music scene, a theatre scene, arts centres and all the rest. Most local authorities are fully aware that locations without a vibrant and prominent art scene are not attractive for inward investment. In a way, local authorities are self-selecting and the ones that take care of their arts scene are the ones who get better investment.