Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Secretary General and her colleagues for appearing before the committee. I wish to focus in the first instance on cultural institutions, programme B, specifically subheads B1 through to B15, of the tourism, culture, arts, Gaeltacht, sport and media Vote. The entire budget of the Department is rapidly nudging up to €1 billion. As a result, I assume that will give rise to many new challenges. Under the Project 2040 national development plan, NDP, there is €460 million allocated to the national cultural institutions investment programme. The projects incorporated into that programme include the conversion of the Bishop Street warehouse into a secure, environmentally controlled archival repository for the National Archives, the National Library of Ireland redevelopment, the development of the Crawford Art Gallery in my native Cork and the proposal to renovate the National Gallery of Ireland, the National Museum of Ireland, the National Concert Hall, the Abbey Theatre and the Chester Beatty Library. The National Museum of Ireland is preparing a design procurement of the history of Ireland galleries.

All are laudable projects and are to be supported. However, they will all bring challenges for the Department. The big shift in the spending capacity of the Department in respect of these cultural institutions under the NDP gives rise to a number of specific questions. First, what expertise and systems have increased at Department level to ensure the efficient disbursement of funding for approved capital development projects?