Ms Rosaleen Molloy:

When considering issues relating to music in Ireland today, there are many factors to be taken into account within the context of how a country’s music ecology works. Some of these factors include support for emerging and established professional musicians practicing in all genres of music, audience engagement, community participation and particular challenges facing the recorded music industry. However, a central issue for music in Ireland today is the fundamental right of every Irish child and young person to have access to music tuition as an essential part of their cultural entitlement. As a pioneering model of philanthropic public partnership, Music Generation is achieving this for generations to come. Music Generation is Ireland’s national music education programme that transforms the lives of children and young people through access to high quality performance music education in their locality. Through partnership, we create rich and diverse ways for children and young people to engage in vocal and instrumental tuition delivered by skilled professional musicians, across all musical genres and styles.

Initiated by our parent company Music Network, Music Generation is co-funded by U2, The Ireland Funds, the Department of Education and Skills and local music education partnerships. Our vision is best expressed by U2’s Bono:

What we want to do is really simple. We just want to make sure that everyone, whatever their background, gets access to music tuition. That’s the idea.

Music Generation believes in the musical potential of every child and young person and that it is every child and young person’s right to have the choice of access and the chance to participate as a musical citizen and that music just doesn’t change lives, it truly transforms them.

While established in 2010, Music Generation’s genesis stems from many years of campaigning by Music Network to address gaps within Ireland’s music education landscape. Prior to Music Generation’s formation in 2010, Ireland was very much out of sync with other comparable European countries in the provision of performance music education. No provision was made for large areas of the country for, particularly outside of major urban centres, where barriers to access included financial, social, geographical and cultural factors, as well as special needs requirements. For decades previously, since the amendment of the Vocational Education Act 1930 by the then Minister for Education, Richard Mulcahy, various attempts had been made to initiate a publicly-supported system for performance music education. In a small country, however, with competing aims and resources, these initiatives were difficult to sustain.

In 2003 Music Network published a feasibility study proposing the establishment of a national system of local music education services, which would involve the creation of a new partnership model that would be publicly supported, socially inclusive, community focused and of high quality, to complement the teaching and learning of music in the classroom. With support from the then Department of Education and Science, the model was piloted in Dublin and Donegal and subsequently independently evaluated in 2009 as a workable and replicable framework for the development of music education services on a wider scale throughout Ireland. However, the economic circumstances of the time created challenges for further development and expansion of the model.

It was then that U2 and The Ireland Funds announced a €7 million donation to music education in Ireland, the largest ever single philanthropic donation to music education in Ireland in the history of the State. This allowed the roll-out of the model in the feasibility study over the next five years. In the words of U2’s The Edge:

We had been looking for some time for a way to get involved in an initiative in music education in Ireland. After talking to various people in Ireland about what to do, we came to the conclusion that the Music Network scheme is really well thought out and that we, in partnership with The Ireland Funds, should just get behind it.

Partnership is central to Music Generation's approach and is informed by the principles of philanthropy, which seek to achieve sustainability and long-term lasting outcomes from the original investment by U2 and The Ireland Funds. This is being achieved through a highly effective model of public philanthropic partnership, where philanthropy provides the seed capital to establish Music Generation programmes locally and the Government, through the Department of Education and Skills, sustainably co-funds each area on a matched 50:50 basis, together with local music education partnerships, once the philanthropic donations cease.

Local music education partnerships that are led by either education and training boards or a local authority, generate locally-sourced matched income from a range of sources. Through its partnership with Government, Music Generation is delivering on the commitments outlined in the Arts in Education Charter, endorsed by Creative Ireland, to ensure that high quality "arts-in education practice is sustained where it arises ... so that what has been to date occasional and random becomes instead widespread and embedded as a norm." Co-funding of the programme at local level ensures that ongoing support and buy-in from the partners that make music education happen on the ground, for and within the communities of which they are a part.

Music Generation's devolved model of delivery by local music education partnerships ensures that programming is responsive to local need and context. There is no "one-size-fits-all" model. This specificity and diversity engenders local ownership and goodwill.

Further national investment has also been generated from the Arts Council to enable the delivery of developmental and collaborative projects. This funding creates valuable opportunities for children, young people and professional musicians from diverse communities, counties and regions to share skills and collective music-making experiences.

I will provide an overview of our first phase, which ran from 2010 to 2015. U2 and the Ireland Funds' initial €7 million donation, which included a donation from Bank of America, enabled the establishment of Music Generation in 2010. This first phase saw the programme established in 11 music education partnerships covering 12 areas of the country: Carlow, Clare, Cork city, Laois, Limerick city, Louth, Mayo, Offaly-Westmeath as a joint partnership, Sligo, south Dublin and Wicklow. The Department of Education and Skills commenced co-funding of all 11 partnerships in 2016, and currently invests €2.485 million annually in the programme. Across these areas, there are 48,500 opportunities annually for children and young people to engage in music tuition who may not otherwise have had the choice of access or the chance to participate and 350 employment opportunities created - mainly for musicians.

I will turn to phase two of the programme, which we are currently involved in rolling out. In November 2015, U2 and the Ireland Funds announced further philanthropic donations to enable Music Generation to extend its reach into new areas of Ireland. This renewed investment, a combined total of €6.3 million that included donations from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Bank of America, was a direct result of the extraordinary success of Music Generation's first phase. Moreover, phase two has been assured of long-term sustainability through a commitment by Government in January 2016 to co-fund the new areas into the future, together with local music education partnerships. An open national call for applications from new music education partnerships to participate in phase two was launched in January 2017 and the nine new areas selected were announced in September 2017. They are Cavan-Monaghan as one partnership area, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Galway city, Galway county, Kilkenny, Leitrim, Roscommon, Waterford and Wexford. These new partnerships are being established incrementally, thus maintaining the measured approach to growth that ensured the successful set-up and sustainability of Music Generation's first phase. Music development officers have been appointed in five areas to lead programme implementation with the remaining four partnerships due to commence set-up at the end of 2018.

In December 2017, the Taoiseach launched Creative Youth - A Plan to Enable the Creative Potential of Every Child and Young Person. The plan sets out measures to deliver on the first key pillar of the Creative Ireland programme entitled, "Children and Youth", and includes a commitment by Government, subject to the budgetary process, to support the nationwide roll-out of Music Generation by 2022. This means that thousands more children and young people across every city and county will have the opportunity to access and engage in truly transformational musical experiences with inspiring musician educators. Music Generation is currently working closely with the Department of Education and Skills to develop the arrangements for this roll out, the achievement of which will reflect an all-of-Government commitment to "enhancing the wellbeing of all our young people through a transformative and creative approach to education and learning."

While this has been happening, Music Generation is achieving global impact and influence. Our Young Ambassadors programme provides young musicians with opportunities to perform their music and represent their county, country and community on a national and international stage. Some recent performances by these skilled young musicians include performances for the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Justin Trudeau; President Michael D. Higgins; and His Serene Highness Prince Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco. Another highlight was the involvement of a choir of seven young musicians from three counties in a landmark performance by U2's The Edge in Rome's Sistine Chapel. Additionally, as a foresight initiative in 2013, Music Generation commissioned an independent research project led by St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, DCU, which has been presented and circulated nationally and internationally, including at the biannual conference of the International Society for Music Education.

I will conclude with our focus for the future. Now and into the future, children and young people will remain at Music Generation's core informing our values and guiding the articulation of our strategic priorities. To achieve our ambitions for children, young people and the musicians with whom we work, Music Generation has set out three overarching priorities for 2016 to 2021 in its strategic plan - growth, sustainability and quality. Our target is to have successfully established sustainably funded music education partnerships providing high-quality performance music education in all remaining areas of Ireland by 2022. Our recommendation to the committee is that ongoing sustained Government investment ensures that children and young people have access to music tuition as part of their fundamental culture entitlement; employment opportunities are created and sustained for musicians; and the quality of life within vibrant musical communities can be developed. We believe fundamentally that this will be achieved by continuing to work in close collaboration with our local and national partners, including philanthropic donors, Departments and agencies, education and training boards and local authorities, the collective dedicated commitment of which has enabled the realisation of Music Generation's remarkable story so far.