Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It would be nice to know their names. Some people, although not the Minister of State, might find it tiresome to be here because we might have very little to offer, very little influence and very little to ignite, to acknowledge or to enlarge. Maybe we are not even worth listening to. I have a feeling somewhere in the back of my head and I did not get that feeling out of the ether; it is there and it is very cloying.

I want to say something the Minister of State might be able to pick up on, and I mentioned it in the Seanad earlier in the week. Northern Ireland is at an impasse in regard to the Border, although not in regard to its people. However, there is also the history of literature, drama, music and the visual arts, and, like naming the cats, we could point to MacNeice, Friel, MacLaverty and Mangan, at the great Heaney, at Wilde, Beckett, William Trevor, Basil Blackshaw and Derek Hill - I could go on and on. Nobody is mentioning this at all. I understand that all of the arguments are political and economic, and concern the Border, but I am not hearing about this from any quarter. Has the Minister, Deputy Madigan, spoken specifically anywhere about the power of the arts and culture across our two islands? Has she brought a voice to that aspect - to the artistic, cultural voices? I am not hearing those and I think there may be a place to hear them.

What I am hearing, and which Friel wrote about, is the language of conflict and a kind of tight, strained language - the language of territory. I can write the speech for the Minister. If there is one thing the arts can do, it is to lift things out of territories and bring territories together. It has done it all over the world through music, dance, visual arts, drama and poetry. However, I am just not hearing it. Maybe people think that is naive of me but I can tell them it is not. Once people start talking about territories and strain, and about "This is my place and that is your place, and never the twain shall meet", we have no fresh breeze in under the door. I wonder are there any thoughts around that in the Department. I often see an artist or a writer on "Newsnight" but I am not seeing or hearing it on Irish radio and television. I am not getting the artist's viewpoint, the musician's viewpoint, the writer's viewpoint. Maybe people do not think that is political but, trust me, it is. We might want to be economic and look at tourism, which Senator Warfield referred to, even at a crass level of how much money we are going to lose, which is a brilliant point because the artist also loses. However, I cannot understand why there is not a strain about this, why I am not hearing it and why Ministers are not standing up and speaking about it because it is so important for children and elders right through our lives. Let us look at what Northern Irish heritage is to us and ours is to them, and let us look at our music and our architecture.

We need to emphasise this. I do not know how the Minister would do that but she could be very subtle about it in speeches. It should be done. If I was the Minister, and I am not and never will be because I would not get the votes in my area, I would be hammering that home. If there was any piece of advice to give - all we are really looking for is communication and not to tell people what to do when the Government is doing it very well - I think there might be something there that would bring others who are in the background, without a voice, towards an energy. It is about an energy and about an energy being dissipated. It reminds me of the egret, a wonderful bird with very long legs, with its huge feet in under the sand, trying to find the razor clams. The Minister of State must feel that himself. There is a moment where it is turning into territories, and this is a way of bringing it back. Maybe that could help but I do not hear it. I would like the Minister of State to comment. It is not an accusation; it is a suggestion that maybe we have something to offer.