Ms Seóna Ní Bhriain:

Míle buíochas as ucht an deis a thug an coiste dúinn go léir an comhrá seo a bheith againn inniu. Táimid lánsásta a bheith in ann éisteacht le gach duine agus a bheith mar chuid den chomhrá seo.

I am head of young people, children and education at the Arts Council. The committee has received our submission. It gives an overview of the Arts Council's policy and initiatives in this area. The Arts Council has a long history of working to develop, support, and promote the arts and education and to advocate for arts education. A number of my colleagues have mentioned initiatives in which the Arts Council has played a central role. However, we always work in partnership with others such as the Points of Alignment report of the Special Committee on the Arts and Education, and the Place of the Arts in Irish Education or Benson report, going back even further, as well as various initiatives through the years.

The committee may have questions around our submission and current policy initiatives and developments. We would be happy to discuss those but I thought we might take this opportunity to say why we do what we do and why we are. The Arts Council is the agency for developing the arts in Ireland. We wish to build a central place for the arts in Irish life. We believe the arts are fundamental to human experience and expression. The arts, whether music, dance, stories or visual arts or, as the Arts Act 2003 puts it, "any creative or interpretative expression...[in] any medium" are part of what make us human and what make us alive. They are our voice in the world and give us insights into other people's voices, perspectives and experiences. It is through the arts that we reflect on where and who we are and are also inspired to imagine new possibilities.

We are cheered up by the arts and sometimes challenged. Sometimes they bring us into dark and depressing places. Overall, however, they make us feel better and they make us feel more present and alive. That is why we are here. My role in particular focuses on young people's experience of and engagement with the arts. In all of our policy initiatives in this area, whether in school or out of school, we are interested in the child or young person's experience and their engagement with the arts. We are interested in their experience and their engagement if they are learners, an audience member with their family, an audience member with their school or a young person developing their own interests as a teenager.

We have a working definition of artistic quality that we use in the Arts Council. As part of developing the arts we also fund the arts and we have to make assessments of different proposals, ideas and suggestions that come in. The definition that we use is that we look for work, engagements or experiences that are ambitious, original, technically competent and connect with people in a lasting way. That last item, the personal response, is critical. It is not that high-quality arts are here and then there, but that we have the people who are engaging with it. For a high-quality arts experience to take place, the people who are experiencing it make it high quality.

With respect to children and young people, that is why we focus on whether it is transforming their experience. Are they being inspired by this? Are they being transported? How are they engaging with it? That makes the arts better because we believe the more diverse voices that shape the arts and the more children and young people contribute to making meaning through the arts, the more the arts become exciting, interesting and reflective of who we are.

That is why we are here. There are clear points of alignment with the high-level goals of other public bodies and why they do what they do. The Department of Children and Youth Affairs is not here today. However, it is interesting because it is very involved in what will develop as part of the Creative Ireland initiatives. However, we work in partnership with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in a number of areas such as early childhood settings, early childhood arts, where it plays a key role, and also in youth strategy and young people's experience out of school.

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs is interested in young people's voices and their participation. I refer to young people's right to participate fully in society and their right to communicate in the medium of their choice to reach their full potential. The Department wants children and young people to be active and healthy. It cares for their well-being and that is where it put the arts in its policy framework. There is nothing that contradicts anything where we are coming from and why we want children and young people to engage with the arts. There is clear alignment. We are coming at planning and provision from different angles and different roles, but essentially we share many of the same goals.

The Department of Education and Skills is here today, as is the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. They have a job to ensure children have an education that enables them to reach their full potential and develop the skills and competencies to help them to flourish in order that they will learn and develop as they grow. Increasingly, as we have heard from our colleagues in the NCCA, the education system has begun to focus on competencies such as being creative. There is a focus on play, enquiry, exploration and imagination as well as collaboration, resilience and communication. They are all things at the heart of a quality arts experience.

There is also recognition within the education system that young people do better overall when they are happy in school. The research that has been mentioned, the Arts and Cultural Participation among Children and Young People - Insights from the Growing up in Ireland Study, was commissioned by the Arts Council from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI. It explains the connections between when young people participate in the arts and other related child outcomes such as their socio-emotional well-being, their academic achievement and their attitudes toward school. There are clearly many reasons for all of us to come together around the table.

Even if we are all coming from these different angles, we are all talking about children reaching their potential and developing the skills and experiences that will serve them now and in life. With the Department of Education and Skills in mind, it may be interested in those creative skills for young people not just to become artists or work in the creative industries but to be engineers or to work in whatever field. Those are skills developed through engaging in the stuff we are about.

What is most rewarding but also challenging about working in this area is that it is necessary to work in partnership. All of a person's creative skills have to be used because children and young people do not reside in any one sector. They do not belong to any one place in public policy. They are impacted by all the different decisions we make. We owe it to them to work together and in partnership to achieve the best outcomes for them. I think there is a real possibility for us to do that. Greater collaboration has developed over recent years. It will take all of us to make the experience for them really high quality.