Fiach MacConghail (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. First, on a potential conflict of interest, I run the Abbey Theatre and it gets funded through the Arts Council and the Department. I always need to put that on the record just in case I have any enemies out there, but I not have any enemies. Second, I am one of the founding members of the National Campaign for the Arts and before I became a Senator we advocated a lot of policy initiatives that are suggested by Professor O’Hagan as chairperson of the steering group.

I congratulate the Arts Council. It is great to note its clean bill of health in terms of managing its resources through what I would consider traumatic change and cuts. It must be difficult to manage that in terms of staffing, restructuring and having to take tougher decisions. We all felt that in the arts world and we all got cut. It would be fair to say there are findings and recommendations but ultimately it is a good news story in terms of how the board, the chairperson and director have managed the Arts Council’s role.

I have several questions in no particular order. The first is directed at Ms McBride. I am picking up on Deputy Ó Fearghaíl’s line of questioning. There seems to be a constant theme in Professor O’Hagan’s authored report around data collection and measurement. I do not wish to put words in his mouth but it appears to be consistent that there is very little evidence. Although we might have data I get confused myself as to where all the data is, where it is centrally located and until that is clear, in my view it leads to potential for poor policy decisions. I know there are recommendations in the report regarding diversifying more funding towards various regions but in order to build confidence around policy I would like to hear what is being done in terms of data collection and how the information is disseminated and if there is a specific role within the council in that regard.

Professor O’Hagan correctly mentioned that the value for money report is about the benefit to the taxpayer.

Ultimately, the Arts Council needs to look at how to illustrate the benefit to the citizen and how that can be measured, qualitatively or quantitatively, to leverage additional growth and income. I would like to hear its views on that. Is any research planned? How will that be linked with data collection?

I understand from the latest strategy, and I noticed it in the O'Rourke report published over a year ago, that the arts community called for an advocacy role for the Arts Council. What is its role? Is the role to act behind the scenes or is it to be more public in terms of advocating value and calling for increased funding for the arts? Those are questions for Ms McBride.

My next comments are to directed to Mr. Ó Coigligh. The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, DCAL, in Northern Ireland and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in England have a full-time economist, or policy unit. Again, I am linking in with Professor O'Hagan's comments. I understand Mr. Ó Coigligh has only recently been appointed but I would like know his view of the recommendations in the value for money report. I think Professor O'Hagan just mentioned it but is there a greater role for the Department in monitoring data and looking at other research in the medium to long term and in linking policy. The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht is working on Culture 2025 but in a way that is kind of a culture policy. How does the Department monitor and back up such a policy? Has it discovered national or international examples of policy and surveys? I am thinking of the Department of Health's survey called TILDA, The Irish Longitudinal study on Ageing. For many years, there has been a campaign advocating the annual harvesting of data, biannual surveys and cultural participation. Is there scope for the Department and the Arts Council to do more in partnership with the Irish Research Council? I have been a Senator for almost five years and I am concerned that there is a lot more collaboration between Departments and NGOs in other areas, such as social justice. I would like to hear Mr. Ó Coigligh view on that.

My final questions are for Professor O'Hagan and Ms Mahony. Professor O'Hagan wrote an interesting and provocative article in The Irish Timesrecently. Deputy Ó Fearghaíl spoke quite eloquently about the matter but we are always defining the value of the arts in terms of absence. What if the Abbey was not there? What if Yeats was not there? What if Beckett was not there? However, people have grown tired of that argument as it is a less sophisticated one.

I have read the report and found it to be very strong, particularly the final chapter. It has looked to the arts council in England in terms of what it considers to be the best or the latest best ways to measure or evaluate. This is always difficult. The arts should not attach itself to economic benefit alone. We have tried that argument but it becomes so instrumental that we lose and become less sophisticated. I include myself in this that we are less sophisticated in arguing the benefit of the arts in a way that is confident and based on data or measurement. It does not have to be based on actual economic indicators. The biggest crisis facing our argument for arts funding is that we - I include myself in this - have not come up with a sophisticated argument where we can go to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and say not to cut our funding because the arts are good for people. How do Professor O'Hagan, as an economist, and Ms Mahony approach that? I refer to research and development and the commercial world. We would all argue that "Love/Hate" would not have succeeded without the extraordinarily talented actors and writers, a lot of whom started off in a theatre. How would one argue that? That is a question for Ms McBride in terms of advocacy. The final line in Professor O'Hagan's article states: "Such evidence can be and has to be found, be it qualitative, quantitative or by way of convincing narrative. It is the only way to secure the future growth." What is the solution?