Mr. John O'Connell:

I thank the committee on behalf of the Walls Project for this opportunity to speak about the company's work and involvement in community arts.

The Walls Project is a creative arts agency and social enterprise specialising in street art. With a strong community focus, it aims to stem urban degeneration and create social cohesion through active public engagement with mural art. It has four distinct strands of work: the Waterford Walls festival, public art commissions, outreach projects and international exchanges. We exist to create spaces for artists and communities to connect, thrive and engage with art.

We support artists and communities through the commission of site-specific street art, creating colourful, vibrant streets that bring pride of place. We are very committed to operating ethically, with fair treatment and pay for artists. Currently, around 70% of our expenditure goes back into fees for artists and arts workers.

We drive placemaking and harness the potential of street art to democratise art and make it fully accessible. Our purpose is to regenerate urban areas and break down the barriers to accessing art, making it part of people's everyday lives and intrinsic to their sense of place.

The Walls Project grew out of and is best known for its annual international street art festival, Waterford Walls. Now in its ninth year, the company has professionalised and the project has grown to the point where, over ten days in August, 27 artists from 14 countries and five continents will paint 40 murals across Waterford city and county. The festival has a curatorial process that ensures diversity and inclusivity in addition to artistic excellence.

With this kind of growth, the budget has had to expand. The whole enterprise is made possible by financial support from over 40 stakeholders, including the Arts Council, Creative Ireland, the embassies of several countries and now, for the first time, a headline sponsor. We receive considerable support from our local authority, Waterford City and County Council, which has designated Waterford Walls as one of its five flagship festivals. Its support includes financial backing but also logistical help, making the potentially massive task of securing planning consent for 30 public artworks a smooth and streamlined process.

The business model behind all this output is a non-profit social enterprise. Our income includes roughly 25% public funding, with the remaining revenues being generated largely through our work as a commissioning agency for public art. We work year round, nationwide in urban and rural areas. Surpluses generated from this work are then reinvested in community projects such as schools' workshops at primary and secondary level, murals in marginalised or disadvantaged areas and an international youth exchange programme.