Mr. Kieran Kehoe:

I thank Senator Malcolm Byrne for his nice words about Waterford. We recognise that similar excellent work is being done in County Wexford. The way we have been looking at this in Waterford, over about a decade or so now, is in a context where we have two hats. One is the regulatory aspect from the planning perspective. This will always be there, and these issues must be identified and dealt with on a case-by-case basis. We took a different approach in respect of looking at this as an opportunity to showcase artists and what they can produce, and also as an opportunity for our city to become the canvas, if we wish to call it that, for quality street art. That is what we have achieved. A few mistakes were made at the start, and we will not say any different.

Through a collaborative approach, between ourselves and Waterford Walls in particular, and now the arts project nationally and internationally, we have developed this real partnership approach. That approach involves ourselves, the Walls Project, Waterford Walls, the owners of buildings and the neighbours. As my colleague from Dublin city stated, we use this partnership process from the perspective of providing the planning consent for these developments. That is one of the reasons why we now have, as I mentioned earlier, Waterford Walls as a flagship festival. Through this programme, we identify the approximately 25 to 30 walls annually that will be the locations for public art installations. The agreement in this regard sets out quite a few terms and conditions regarding what can be put on the walls and placed in the various locations. There can be no logos or political statements because that is not what this is about. This is about street art. Yet we are not impinging upon the artistic creativity of the artists involved.

We think this is going quite well. The success we have had in the city led us to roll out this festival into our more rural parts. Four of our smaller towns across west Waterford, as I would call it, have had the benefit of public art installations on some buildings in those towns and villages. We did this because we wanted to see this as an all-Waterford endeavour. Public street art is not exclusive to city environs. This initiative has been very much welcomed politically and, more importantly, by the communities in those towns and villages where these installations have gone in. I ask my colleague, Ms Cantwell, to talk about how we get art into the social and demographic areas mentioned.