Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I welcome the opportunity to debate the vital importance of arts, culture and our heritage. Arts and culture are not optional extras and should not be measured by financial or economic metrics. It is not too grandiose to say that arts, culture and heritage are what make us human and define us as creative beings. They are what separate us from every other species on the planet. Treating arts and cultural institutions like just another quango or as just an opportunity to cut costs, threatens the essence of what we are as human beings and is misguided. This is even more true at a time of recession.

It may be of interest to the Minister to know that the first theatres in ancient Greece began in healing centres and it was from this that we got the term "catharsis". Theatre was about therapeutic healing and it was from that theatre developed. Never has that role been more important and necessary than now when we are faced with a huge economic recession. This recession resulted from straying away from human priorities and focusing purely on economic and financial interests. This has led us to the current impasse. Faced with this situation, there has been a significant return to the arts. More people are visiting galleries and museums and more people are getting involved in poetry and visiting the theatre. Therefore, the last thing we should be doing is making cuts in the culture area or to cultural institutions.

This error is repeated in the Government's motion, in that all the language is the language of corporate and commercial speak, such as "customer service", "service delivery channels", "reducing our costs", "better value for money" and "implementation and delivery". That is not the language we should use to talk about the arts, culture and heritage. They are not about those things, nor should they be. It is a tragedy that we ever have to charge for access to the arts, culture or heritage. With regard to the institutions the Minister proposes to merge for cost-cutting purposes - treating them like quangos - access to them is free. Therefore, the proposal to merge them on the basis of achieving short-term cuts is a grave error. As somebody said in a meeting on this issue yesterday, it is like saying we should merge the FAI, the IRFU and the GAA, because they are all sports that use a ball. Of course, they are distinct sports and should not be treated and lumped in together as if they are the same on the basis of cost-cutting.

These proposals are more galling because all of this cost-cutting is being done to bail out bankers. I will finish by citing the poet Bertolt Brecht who said the crime of robbing a bank was nothing compared to the crime of owning one. He was right. It is a tragedy that our society, our arts, culture and heritage should face cuts in order to bail out the bankers and bondholders who brought our country and Europe to the sorry pass it is in now.

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