Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

In 2008, my Department commenced an audit of sports facilities at local level in line with a commitment in the programme for Government. The audit was carried out with the assistance of local authorities and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. At the time it was decided to take the opportunity to gather information on publicly funded arts and community facilities in local authority areas. Guidelines were issued to the local authorities to assist them in carrying out the audit. The local authorities have since submitted their returns which contain records of arts facilities in each area. The returns received from local authorities are being collated into a database and are being cross-checked against the Department's arts and culture capital programme records.

When this work is completed, the Department will assess what additional necessary actions would be required to complete a full national audit of arts and cultural facilities. In the meantime, many local authorities are publishing the information they received during the course of the audits. Access to this information is available on some local authority websites.

Since 2004, the Department has spent €132 million in capital support for 120 arts centres, galleries, museums and theatres. It is fair to say that this six-year period has see the single largest period of sustained investment in arts infrastructure in the history of the State. In that time venues from the award winning Wexford Festival Opera to the Model Niland in Sligo, and from the Gate and the Abbey in Dublin to the Druid in Galway have received investment. Truly, as we face into the second decade of the 21st century, we have a world class arts infrastructure, and it is not all Dublin based. There is much more to achieve and the primary challenge I face now is ensuring an adequacy of public resources to maintain activity levels at these wonderful venues. In 2009 alone, capital support was provided to 48 venues.

See this speech in context