Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael)

During the past five years the taxpayer has spent €50 million on opera here, which is probably more than has been spent on any other genre of music and the arts. The Grand Canal Theatre is currently putting on the opera, "Rigoletto" and the Opera Theatre Company is continuing with its programme so the country is not devoid of opera. This year the Wexford Festival Opera will increase its number of days to 16, which will be an expansive programme. In 2011 the taxpayer or the Government will contribute more than €1.7 million to the Wexford Festival Opera, which is a considerable sum of money given that the Government already spent €30 million on providing a state of the art opera house of international standard.

The Arts Council always had responsibility for the promotion of opera. It has a budget of €2.2 million this year for opera development, promotion and support. I will encourage it to support opera as much as possible in the future.

As the Deputy mentioned, there were problems with Opera Ireland which received a large sum of funding over the years. It received €1.6 million in 2010. There were problems internally in the company and the Arts Council had to help to bail it out.

Overall I am confident that opera will be supported here, that the Arts Council will examine ways and means of promoting opera and making it available to a broader audience not only in the capital city but throughout the country. That can be done in the future.

I advise the Arts Council to consider the Shannon report, which saw Wexford Festival Opera play a major role in the promotion of opera here. Some good proposals were made prior to the Minister deciding we would have a national opera company. The Minister set up an interim board but the Minister who succeeded the former Minister, Mr. Martin Cullen, decided not to provide any funding. Therefore, I had no other option but to hand back responsibility to the Arts Council.

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