Ms Mary Nash:

We thank the committee for inviting us here to discuss this very important subject. The Department sent a detailed ten-page submission on the topic to the committee, so I will confine myself to a brief overview. Many of the interventions in local and community arts are developed and delivered by the State bodies and national cultural institutions under the aegis of the Department. The Arts Council is the primary funder of the arts in Ireland. The Minister has allocated more than €130 million for this year to the Arts Council. As the council is here today, I will focus on the other State bodies under the Department.

The national cultural institutions play an important role in the development of local and community arts, by increasing access to the national collections through online programmes and by lending objects to regional museums and galleries. National cultural institutions have a range of outreach and educational activities to engage diverse communities across the country, aimed at facilitating the public’s understanding of items in the national collections and the broader context in which they were produced. The Department also funds local and regional museums as well as small-scale local festivals and summer schools.

Within the Department, the Creative Ireland programme, now extended to 2027, is a culture-based initiative designed to promote individual, community and national well-being. From 2018 to end 2022, the Creative Communities initiative, in conjunction with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has allocated €29 million to local authorities to support community-led participation. Creative Communities delivers investment directly into local creative economies through their local authorities. Every local authority has now established what is known as a culture and creativity team, bringing together arts officers, heritage officers, librarians, biodiversity officers, Irish language officers, archivists, Age Friendly Ireland and Healthy Ireland representatives and economic development officers. The idea behind this is to highlight the role arts, culture and creativity can play in local issues as varied as public engagement on climate action, local creative economies, migrant integration and aging well.

In so many areas, local authorities play an invaluable role in the development of local and community arts. For example, under the community strand of the decade of centenaries programme, significant funding of €2 million has been prioritised for local artists and creative communities. The Department works closely with our key stakeholders as well as in partnership with local authorities. We are looking forward to hearing the views of the members of the committee and of the other witnesses and will be happy to answer questions.