Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I welcome all the guests. I come from Longford where Backstage Theatre has been the home of the arts in my county for 20 or 25 years. Since the theatre was built in a central location, it has contributed to an expansion of the arts through the local musical society. We have a fantastic variety group. I will do a 100 km in May as a fundraiser for the variety group but I will come to that issue later. We have seen the evolution of the stage school, we have the Backstage Youth Theatre and we have the Peelo School of Dance. Having that facility in the county has supported all that, as well as other areas around the county. We have a very strong, vibrant arts section.

It would be remiss of me to not mention the late Fergus Kennedy, the former arts officer in Longford County Council, who passed away suddenly only a number of weeks ago. I want to put on the record of the House my thanks to Fergus for all he did in Longford to support organisations. He worked with me on a number of art projects through the years. I extend my deepest sympathies to his family on their sudden bereavement.

Our local authority has always been very supportive of us developing projects within the county. Only last February, a project was developed with the assistant arts officer, Shane Crossan, as well as a number of others - the Longford Lights Festival. It was projected that the project was to expect 4,000 to 5,000 people over the weekend. It was held in the old Army barracks, which is owned by the local authority. More than 12,000 people visited that project. It was a fantastic success and it was fantastic for the town. It involved school kids, the local special school and so many voluntary organisation to put that event on, to develop the project and the products within it and to utilise the artists within our local community.

With the proceeds of funding, which is to my knowledge from the Arts Council, we want to put that project on again and build on the success of that. However, am I correct that access to funding for a secondary project such as that is sometimes more difficult? I may be incorrect. Yet, it is something we want to build on and expand for next year because it was a fantastic event. I attended on the Friday night. Anyone who was there at the event could see the social media accounts of those in attendance lighting up. That is what drove people to come to Longford. I also said to Shane Cross that I was at Wild Lights in Dublin Zoo, although I probably should not name it, in the previous year. There, I paid a significant amount to go with my family, but I thought this was a better show. It just shows what can be done on a small budget. However, in a small county, we need that funding to be able to avail of that funding on an annual basis so that we can continue putting on that project. Is there a possibility for further funding for a project like that, which is probably unique in the country - I do not think too many of them are held - so that we could receive continuous funding to make into a national event?

As I said earlier, I will be doing a fundraiser for the local variety group, because we have to fundraise the money that is required to put on a show. This is because all the money that is raised in the show is given to charity. Over the past 15 years or so, more than €250,000 has been given to various local charities. However, the fundraising has to take place to actually put it on. It is the same case for the local musical society, which puts on fantastic shows. Eight nights were sold out recently for an adaptation of Footloose. It was a brilliant production, but yet again, they have to fundraise to be able to put on a show and to give us entertainment. Most members of our committee are supportive in getting funding for our pantos etc., at Christmas. I firmly believe there needs to be some sort of a grant scheme in place for musical societies or variety shows. The musical societies are all registered through the Association of Irish Musical Societies, AIMS. There is a similar scheme in another Department under the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, for agricultural shows. It is funded through the Irish Shows Association, ISA. I ask for this to be looked at so that some funding would be put in place with AIMS, so that they could distribute it to the musical societies throughout the country. This would be against expenses they have in putting on shows to make sure they do not have to that volume of fundraising. They are putting in enough time and effort as it is into rehearsing, organising the show, etc., without having to go out and fundraise to actually put on the show. There should be some sort of funding model in place. Those are my first questions.