Ms Ann Doherty:

I thank the Chair. On behalf of myself and my colleagues who are in the room - Ms Michelle Carew, arts officer, and Ms Siobhán Clancy, assistant arts officer with special responsibility for community arts - we thank the committee for inviting us here to address this important topic from a local authority point of view. Cork City Council recognises the importance of the arts in local development and resources a significant investment in communities across the city. This commitment to the arts is embedded across the city council’s policies including our city development plan, which is the first of what will be three successive development plans that will oversee the growth of Cork as a city of international scale as per targets of the national planning framework, Ireland 2040. The city’s population is set to grow by over 120,000 people to 335,000 people by 2040.

Cork City Council’s five-year arts and cultural strategy pursues a vision for this growing city as one where art and artists thrive. It seeks to develop Cork as a city for artists and to put arts and culture at the centre of a vibrant, just and progressive city. We are building from a strong foundation. Our established arts and cultural institutions, organisations and festivals sustain a vibrant arts ecology. This supports artists, creates outstanding arts experiences, embraces the city’s diverse public and visitors alike, and advances the city’s national and international reputation. A European City of Culture in 2005, Cork ranked second among 79 cities for cultural participation and attractiveness in the European Commission’s cultural and creative cities monitor in 2019.

Along with local organisations and agencies, we maintain key partnerships with the Arts Council of Ireland and the Government’s Creative Ireland programme, working to deliver on our shared objectives for local arts development and community creativity respectively. Since the drafting of Cork city’s first arts and cultural strategy back in 2003, the council has developed and resourced a community arts specialism as central to its arts service, and this underpins the quality of initiatives as detailed in our submission to the committee across areas including community arts, arts and disability, intercultural arts, arts and health, and arts and older people.

The community arts specialism at Cork City Council reflects a standard in service delivery that situates the arts within a critical human rights framework. Our strategic goal, arts for everyone, recognises the importance of freedom to participate in the cultural life of the community, and aims to encourage and enable more people across all of the city’s community to access and enjoy art.

Key considerations for local arts development evident in the experience of Cork City Council include the need to support and encourage inclusive and accessible arts opportunities that reflect the full diversity of the city demographics. We are also cognisant of the need for increased arts infrastructure, in particular accessible arts workspaces, to support the sustainability of arts provision in line with city growth. Finally, we would like to welcome the increase in funding thresholds for public art commissions under the per cent for art scheme, and we note the significant opportunity for local arts development therein.