Ms Maureen Kennelly:

We are delighted to have the opportunity to address the committee today to talk about our work in the area of local and community arts. We are proud to have played a critical role in the development of local and community arts over six years. We are guided by our ten-year strategy, Making Great Art Work, which sets forth a vision for Ireland in which the arts are valued as central to civic life. Everybody in the Arts Council cares about the well-being of future generations in Ireland and that guides all the work we do. The strategy gives equal weight to the artist and the public engagement. Our goal is that more people can enjoy high quality arts in more places.

We also have a spatial policy, where we stress the importance of the arts in the broader public policy, such as Project Ireland 2040 and Our Rural Future. Barriers persist, unfortunately, in growing and diversifying audiences and we are committed to breaking new ground. We desperately want the arts landscape to be more representative of Ireland and of how life is lived there today. Children and young people are a priority, as makers and audiences and later this year we will publish a new policy which will focus on children and young people. We have a long-standing public sector partnership, which is critical to our work, that celebrates 40 years in 2025.

As Ms Nash mentioned, we have a budget of €130 million this year. We will invest 93% of that directly in artists, arts organisations, people and places. This is investment goes to 55 arts centres, such as Wexford arts centre and 139 festivals, including Ballydehob Jazz Festival and many more. Our direct investment into local government this year is €3.3 million. With that, we are able to leverage an additional €41 million per annum by local government, which is a staggering sum indeed. We have invested €4 million to date in establishing 12 creative places around Ireland, in places such as Shannon, Darndale and Athy, which have reached 60,000 people every year so far. We are investing €3 million per annum in creative schools and have reached 831 schools to date. We have been running Culture Night since 2019, with a significant 15% of the population taking part. As Ms O'Reilly keeps reminding me: the equivalent of eight Croke Parks full to capacity took part in Culture Night last year. We are hoping to exceed that figure this year.

At the heart of local and community arts are the artists that both the Arts Council and local government and now the basic income for artist pilot programme support. It is their brilliant ideas that bring joy, contribute to our well-being, spark ambition, provoke thought and engage the public in life-affirming and meaningful ways.