Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht

2013 Allocations for Public Expenditure
Vote 33 - Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht

4:55 pm

Photo of Jimmy DeenihanJimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With regard to looking for alternative sources of funding, we are considering all options. I have established a philanthropy initiative and I am encouraging the national cultural institutions to take part in it. The National Archives have been successful in getting a philanthropic contribution of €250,000 from the Wellcome Trust, which proves this can be done. I see the director of the Abbey Theatre is at this meeting. My Department is working closely with the Abbey Theatre on a number of issues, including the acquisition of land to ensure a new theatre can be built in the future. The director was in Boston recently looking for philanthropic opportunities. The director of the National Library is looking at opportunities. We are trying to get funding from as many sources as possible because the taxpayers' contribution will be reducing, as we know.

I have asked the National Museum, the National Library and the National Gallery to ensure we encourage personal donations, without having compulsory entry fees. I have visited museums and libraries all over the world and I have noted there is almost always a place at the entrance or elsewhere where visitors can make a contribution if they wish. I have seen people making very generous contributions.

We are trying to encourage people to use the national cultural institutions. I am proposing different approaches to seeking revenue for those institutions.

An interesting programme was initiated recently by the Arts Council. The RAISE project is working with ten different groups to build the council's capacity to raise funds.

That will prove to be productive. The idea is to raise €10 million in extra funding over the next ten years, and if anyone has any ideas, I will listen to them. We want to protect the free entry, and the census documents have also proven very popular. There were around 700 million hits on them and access is free of charge. They offer a service to the diaspora without charging for it. The more we can make available free of charge to the diaspora, the better. It is the least we can do for them.

The Deputy is a man of ideas and if he has any more I will be delighted to entertain them. It is part of my vision at present to source as much funding support for the national cultural institutions as possible. This week I will be in New York at the Lincoln Centre with representatives of the National Concert Hall. We are trying to identify potential contributors and philanthropists that will donate to the National Concert Hall. It is part of our policy at the moment.

As regards access and capital, we are trying to manage the projects. This year, Smock Alley Theatre was completed, along with the Niland Gallery in Sligo and the Belltable Theatre and the City Art Gallery in Limerick, and the Garage Theatre in Monaghan is about to be completed. This committee should visit that venue because it was done in collaboration with County Monaghan Vocational Education Committee so education and the arts will take place side by side in the centre of a complex that will support first and second level educational institutes. It is an example for everyone. The Theatre Royal in Waterford is almost completed, and although Solas in Galway is proving to be a challenge, we are trying to manage it as best we can to ensure its completion. Work is also ongoing on Athlone Art Gallery, and in the next few years there will be high profile projects in the Butler Gallery in Kilkenny and the theatre in Tullamore. No project has failed yet, and despite the tight finances, we are still managing to ensure cashflow for their completion. I am confident the commitments made in the access programme will be honoured within the constraints we face.

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