Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I thank the Minister and Minister of State for their presence. It is good to be here and to hear of increases in funding to the arts. There were no increases for many years and we all would have preferred to have more. I hope we will be able to see these increases continue year on year.

Let me draw attention to the following. The new cultural and heritage centre at College Green, Dublin will be a fantastic asset and will add to the whole cultural offering in the city. We take for granted the fact that entry to many of the cultural institutions are free. If one goes abroad, one must pay to visit museums and galleries. When people come to Dublin, they cannot believe they can have access to all of these amazing places. Will that be the approach in this centre? It would be marvellous to have a Seamus Heaney exhibition there because he is a cultural icon, both nationally and internationally.

I understand that under the culture plan, each local authority will have a culture team. Is the Minister engaging with the local authority culture teams to see what their work programmes are? Does she have ongoing engagement with the culture teams? I ask because these teams are so important in the delivery of Creative Ireland as the arts officers and the heritage officers really have their fingers on the pulse of what is going on in their counties. It is really important that it is ongoing.

I have had a look at the excellent Creative Ireland website,Ireland.ie. Is there scope to expand on that website? There are fantastic artists, writers and people involved in the cultural life of Ireland who might well be available for work or to participate, whether nationally or internationally. Would it be possible to have a section of the website direct the public to artists who register on it? I think it might be worthwhile to look at broadening the capacity. There was a great outcome to the celebration of the 2016 year of commemorations and the fact that communities really embraced this in such a positive way took everybody by surprise. While everyone knew it would be driven by the Government and the local authorities, to see communities really looking at their history and having enactments with adults and children really participating in an engaged way was a marvellous outcome. It was a little surprising because I do not believe people really expected the level of community engagement, which was really marvellous.

I was appalled to hear about the alleged harassment which has been revealed recently. The approach the Minister has taken in dealing with it has been positive and constructive. She has taken control of it, putting procedures in place rather than waiting for something to evolve. I am trying to get my head around the points made by the Chairman and Deputy Niamh Smyth about people who were funding cultural organisations or indeed any organisation. To clarify, is it being suggested that those who are providing funding to outside organisations, be they agencies or whatever, should get involved in issues that fall under employment legislation? If that be the case, would it apply to the political parties that are funded by the Houses of the Oireachtas? If there was a difficulty within a political party, does that mean the funder would get involved? Is that the direction in which the members are going in this regard? Employment law is very clear.