Mr. Feargal Ó Coigligh:

I will commence. In fairness, Ms Banotti joined us in June 2018. Some of the issues go back to the origins of the Creative Ireland programme. It is interesting to look to see where the origins of the programme came from. We are developing our overall cultural policy and the committee has been helpful in this regard. The Department for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht led a cross-Government programme in the Ireland 2016 Centenary programme, working with agencies throughout the State, and together with the Arts Council, other Departments and local authorities, we were able to bring a huge amount of national pride. When we were looking back to see why it worked, we realised part of it was the cross-cutting nature, the engagement on the ground and the work by local authorities. There was a feeling that we needed to build on that. That is the basic structure that underpinned the Creative Ireland programme.

The focus of engagement must be on the programme, where it is not advertising Government but rather advertising and promoting culture and creativity at the local level. If one looks at the figures, there has been a significant shift in terms of the first year costs of the programme, where there was a significant cost in developing new websites, new digital interfaces as well as very upfront engagement, and that has been reduced significantly in the second year as we move to the programme. Ms Banotti may be able to speak about the programme issues.

I will now address the funding model and the application of the arm’s length principle. I met the National Campaign for the Arts recently and we were discussing the principle of arm’s length. I made the point that an issue with this principle is that when people ask whether we respect the arm’s length principle and we respond that we do, the conversation ends. I made the point that we need to talk about the arm’s length principle because sometimes it gets in the way of working together. For example, the Department has not had a history of working with the Arts Council or with the Department of Education and Skills. In fact, the Department of Education and Skills and the Arts Council would not be able to work together in delivering the Creative Schools programme if it were not for the glue to bring everything together provided by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in its role as a Department. That is collaboration, which is not getting in the way of the Arts Council's arm’s length principle. We are not making choices as to whether artist X or artist Y should be supported. We are not determining what artists can say. That is not a space where we go. When we talk about the arm’s length principle, we need to engage on what we mean by the term so as not to create artificial barriers that prevent us working together.

As Ms Banotti rightly pointed out, the difference between directing funding through the Arts Council solely and the way we are providing a small amount of funding through the Creative Ireland programme is the issue of collaboration. The Arts Council is very much about promoting the professional arts in Ireland, and rightfully so. The Heritage Council is about promoting interest in our heritage. We found with the Ireland 2016 programme that it was often the case that it was the first time at local authority level that librarians, archivists, arts officers and heritage officers actually worked together. That is a significant level of cultural energy that we were missing. The core point of the programme was to ensure that we put in place these cultural teams, which did not happen in the past. That has been very successful. The Arts Council or the Heritage Council alone could not have done that whereas the Department, which has a broader responsibility for engaging in our culture, was able to bring those partners together. That is why it is different. It is not trying to promote what particular people would say or not say.