Ms Una Mullally:

Yes. From my experience, I will echo what Mr. Caslin is saying, which is that things are very ad hoc. Relationships and working with councils are to be really welcomed in terms of artists getting things over the line.

That also creates a lack of consistency with regard to who gets to make work, how and at what speed they get to do so, and who is facilitated and who is not. The Walls Project is working well with councils around the country, which is to be applauded.

One of the massive issues is that Dublin city does not have the visual vibrancy of cultural activity that other Irish cities have, which is remarkable considering it is the capital and more than half of the practising artists in the country live in Dublin. An adversarial environment and atmosphere seems to colour many artists' experiences with regard to engaging with the council in different ways. When it comes to facilitating art and making a place vibrant and building community around art, celebrating public art and getting it made, much of the issue is not funding. It is about values and culture. We see this in different ways. There is an atmosphere whereby people have to fight for everything. They are existing in a hostile environment in the capital as they try to create and express themselves freely. There are many systemic reasons for that. There are constraints on where artists can paint or work. It is difficult to find a studio or a place to live.

I was struck recently by a conversation involving a group of artists on Richmond Road who were being evicted from their studio in Dublin 3. When they wrote to the council seeking help last summer, they got a response from the assistant chief executive, Richard Shakespeare. I wrote down what he said because I thought it was interesting in terms of how the council speaks to artists who are lower down the ranks. Mr. Shakespeare said that the fact those artists found themselves in an unacceptable position whereby they had to find alternative accommodation and potentially go through an open and transparent process to gain access to city council property was their issue and not the city council's. He went on to say that the belief that the city council was the panacea to those artists' problem was nothing short of astounding. He also stated that he did not see the need to discuss the matter further at that point. That kind of engagement with artists not only upsets the people who are really and genuinely asking for help but it creates a kind of culture and sends out an adversarial message when there is no reason for it. As it happens, that collective of artists ended up finding space in the Phibsborough shopping centre. There are multiple opportunities in the capital and elsewhere for artists to thrive, given the level of vacancy.

Much of the issue does not relate to funding. Public art and all of that stuff can get locked in this funding cycle. Of course, artists are always going to want more funding. Of course, local authorities and central government will always be in that tension. Much of the issue is about the requirement for a shift in attitude. A shift in respect of who is facilitated is evident depending on who the messenger is. For example, the Dean Art Studios on Chatham Row has a meanwhile use licence that was granted by Dublin City Council. It is a fantastic space and an asset to the city. It should be retained. There was no process between the entity looking to lease the building and the council. The council said that the process was waived. As it happens, the people who were trying to lease the building were from Press Up Hospitality Group, a property developer and hospitality operator with considerable resources. We need to ask why it is that a group of artists operating independently and trying to get their practice together and maintain their space were greeted by a particular type of communication by the city's local authority while another entity with considerable resources was essentially allowed to lease a building on a very inexpensive licence. It is great that the building is there, do not get me wrong, but the kind of experience people have in this city, whether fairly or not and overblown or not, adds to a feeling that local authorities are often in enforcement or obstruction mode rather than a mode of facilitation. That makes people fall back from engaging.