Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not think Mr. Falvey and I are at odds. It is one of these areas where society is starting to grapple with certain concepts.

In the past, things happened by their nature. I attended the venue in Dingle many times as a youth and it was of its time when I visited it. I have visited quite a number of venues over the years and when one visits them now, they do not look the same because owners change their premises to meet current demand. Sometimes it takes a number of years for venue owners to see how the demands of younger people have shifted. Changing or upgrading a venue can often be a significant undertaking and there are no grants available. Owners usually have to get a loan based on a business plan. Such a plan will show that if they invest, they can change their venue to reflect the new cultural landscape. A music venue could change and become a film venue, for example. In the main, it is the dance and music venues that have had the strictest health and safety and fire safety conditions imposed on them and rightly so. Tragically, this city has seen the need for such conditions in the past. Meeting those conditions is often a significant undertaking for venue owners. At this point, more and more of the larger, under-utilised venues in semi-derelict parts of the city are being gobbled up by the building boom. The same thing happened towards the end of the Celtic tiger period. Dance venues in the city of one or two storeys have shot up in value. It is the owners of such properties, who may have leased them out for a number of years, who will decide what happens. It is not necessarily in the gift of the Government or the local authorities to prevent owners from selling. I am not suggesting that the State buys lots of venues but we do need to look at the venues that are under the control of the State. Are we getting full value from them? Are there venues under the control of the councils or the State that could serve a different purpose at night from that which they serve during the day? I am talking here about multipurpose venues. If the State is planning further investment in community halls in Dublin or in the larger towns, it could consider whether such halls can sustain events at night and on weekends. Festivals held in particular venues will come to an end if the venues close. The Other Voices festival in Dingle is happening this weekend but if its usual venue closes, to where will it move?

We also need to ask questions about access to transport. In the city, if a venue is four miles away, one can walk to it because there are footpaths and street lighting or one get a taxi. If one is in rural Ireland and there is no transport, however, one is not going to walk home at 4 a.m. in the dark. That is an issue with which rural Ireland and the Government are grappling in a very haphazard way. While it is not specifically an issue for the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, it is an important consideration nonetheless.

The Give Us The Night campaign is not just about venues and extending the licensing hours. It is also asking what activities can be run at night that people will go to. There is no point in putting on events that nobody will go to. We have seen State buildings in this city opening on Culture Night. Can that be extended to later hours? Can we look at other events? Dublin City Council is planning to develop white water rapids at the International Financial Services Centre. Will that be a late-night venue? Can cinemas be encouraged to show late-night films or to show films all through the night as part of a film festival? The same question could be posed in the context of drama festivals. Things like tech conventions or superhero conventions take place in the city but they usually run from about 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Is there encouragement, prompting or funding available to organisations that are running such events to think outside the box? This is possibly a question for the Arts Council rather than the Department. Could the Department encourage the Arts Council to work with Dublin City Council and other local authorities to encourage those who are making applications for funding for events or festivals not to limit their activities to normal hours? Could we concentrate for a period of two to three years on evening and night time events? Is that doable? Do we have sufficient footfall? Can we attract more tourists to the country by having offerings that are not limited to the day time? In that context, the licensing hours and fees payable must also be considered. If events had State backing, with additional funding to promote themselves, that would make up for the extra cost of opening at night.