John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

Gross expenditure in arts and culture in 2007 rose from €198.7 million to €216.56 million. There has been an 11% increase in the Arts Council budget to €80 million, which was the amount sought.

The Minister for Education and Science and I have set up a committee to look at the question of the arts in education. This committee is examining how we can influence the school curriculum to promote the arts. I anticipate that this report should be with us by next summer and I hope that it will receive the same level of attention as the report of the traditional arts committee. In that case, funding was immediately committed to the promotion of the traditional arts and there is now a coherent strategy for traditional arts in this country. Through the co-operation that we have already received from the Minister for Education and Science, I hope that we would be in a position to have a far greater involvement in nurturing the arts among young people. The obvious way to do this is through the education process. I look forward to receiving the report of the committee, which was set up under the Arts Act 2003.

We recently announced ACCESS II to refurbish, restore and build new arts centres around the country. Following on from ACCESS I, when more than €45 million was spent on these initiatives, this will represent a further advance in the provision of arts infrastructure.

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