Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 4 October 2017
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs
Estimates For Public Services 2017: Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs
1:30 pm
Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source
First, as members are aware, the Solas project started in 2007. In fairness to the people who led that project, it was in the interests of the arts in Galway. There is no doubt that it was a well intentioned project. I am sure that members know of some of the prominent figures who were involved in it at the time. An application came in during 2007 and my Department committed to providing funding of €2 million to the project promoter who was then Galway Picture Palace Ltd., known as Solas, towards the construction of an art house cinema on a city centre site. The site was to be provided by Galway city council. The original total project cost was €6.1 million and construction commenced in August 2009. The project was fraught with difficulties. They started the project right bang in the middle of economic crash.
When I came in to the Department in 2014 I was left with a situation where a premises in the heart of Galway was unfinished. It was a site with a huge amount of anti-social behaviour. I visited the site and it was a shell of a building. The decision I had to make at that stage was whether to allow this whole project to collapse or to do something about it. I decided that it was in the best interests of everybody, including the people of Galway city, that the project should be finished and opened as a cinema, as planned. At that stage I committed the further funding. The project already had €2 million, and that was gone. In 2015 and 2016 I committed the €990,000, almost €1 million. We worked closely with Galway City Council and the project promoters from Element Pictures who are experts at running this type of project - they also run the Light House Cinema in Smithfield, Dublin. My Department has been working with Galway City Council to progress the project. It is well on its way and we hope that it should be finished by January next year. This is the plan. There are, however, still a few issues. The closure of the building site over a prolonged period, from 2009 until the work re-started, presented difficulties in rectifying certain design deficiencies and this may give rise to some additional costs. The costs are being very closely monitored and will be considered by all funding partners as the project completes. The Department has not lost any public money on the project. There is no money lost to pursue. There is a lean on the building to protect the taxpayers' investment. The plan is to open it by early January. It will be a wonderful addition to Galway, which has won the bid for European Capital of Culture 2020. One of the issues the city needed to address was the lack of arts space. This project will be a great addition. It was a legacy project that I had to deal with. I felt that it was in the best interests of everybody to proceed and to work with the different stakeholders to bring it to fruition
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