Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue today. The arts, through theatre, music, dance, the visual arts, architecture, opera, traditional arts, literature and film, make an enormous contribution to Irish society. They help to define us a people, shape our sense of place and are key factors in shaping our sense of national identity. The arts are also central to our sense of cultural identity. Irish people have a deeply embedded and distinctive tradition of storytelling, image making and music. That tradition underpins our great achievements in many fields of the arts. The nation's rich artistic heritage is continually being added to and transformed by a new generation of Irish artists.

Cultural and artistic expression is dynamic and fluid. It is in a constant state of interpretation, reinterpretation, and invention. However, cultural and artistic expression and creativity require nurturing and support.

In the current economic maelstrom of people losing their jobs, struggling to find work, burdened by debts or living lives of daily uncertainty in terms of their future, the arts have the ability to provide a source of enrichment and escape. At a societal level, the arts have the potential to lift the spirits of the nation. Culture night is a great example in this regard. Last Friday week many towns across the country were buzzing with many people taking part in cultural events.

The arts are, of course, also one of our most lucrative cultural exports. Not only are the arts good for society in general, they have an important role to play in helping Ireland to rebuild its international reputation. Irish Artists enhance our global reputation, be it on movie screens, in theatres, on concert stages or through books. This reputation, in turn, drives tourism from abroad. For example, 1.6 million overseas tourists visited our museums and galleries in 2011. A further 433,000 attended festivals and other cultural events. Cultural tourism is worth more than €2 billion to the Irish economy. For example, the total economic impact of the west Cork music festival in 2011 was €1.6 million. The total economic impact of the Galway arts festival in the same year was €17.5 million. Some 80% of foreign tourists cite culture and heritage as a motivating factor in choosing Ireland as their preferred holiday destination. More important, this is the only growth area of the Irish tourism market.

In an increasingly homogenised and globalised world, where cities are competing with each other for tourists and foreign direct investment, the arts have the potential to be an important pull factor. They mark Ireland out as a distinctive and rich place to visit or, more important, as the ideal location to set up a business and live. In a time of great harshness and fiscal cruelty we should be protecting and investing in the arts. This Government is choosing to crudely dismantle important aspects of our artistic infrastructure and national heritage, while paying scant regard to the impact of such actions on tourism, communities, business, Ireland's international reputation and last, but not least, the national well-being.

The arts have a humanising effect on society. They bring softness, imagination and creativity to communities that in economic and infrastructural terms have all but been forgotten by the State and the political elite. The arts have the potential to soften urban wastelands and to give hope and human solace to people who often legitimately feel betrayed by the political system and those in power. At local level, the Arts Council, in grant aiding local arts groups, individual artists and small art organisations, reaches into the very heart of almost every community in Ireland. This aid is particularly important for disadvantaged neighbourhoods in cities across urban Ireland. It is an accepted fact that the arts, be it in the form of a community orchestra, a local drama group or a three-person band, can make a crucial intervention in a young person's life, giving him or her a sense of self-worth and purpose.

To this end, councils across the country have developed policies that include cross departmental support for arts events and activities that have at their core.social inclusion. One such example is the community and enterprise department in Limerick which is involved in supporting the city's life-long learning festival - the environment department in supporting May music in the park and RAPID, the travellers story telling project. Not alone are the arts good for individuals, cities and society and for Ireland's international reputation, they are good for our economy too. The Arts Council annually supports 3,000 jobs. It funds 2,000 cultural events and 500 organisations, generating a turnover of €192 million, sending €54 million directly back to the Exchequer in the form of income, VAT and other taxes.

The Arts sector supports 27,000 jobs and contributes €382 million in taxes. The total of direct, indirect and induced employment supported by the arts and creative industries is 79,000 jobs. One wonders why then that State funding and investment in the arts is down by 25%, from €84.6 million in 2008 to €63.2 million in 2012. Sinn Féin is concerned at the proposal to merge the various key cultural institutions. We are also opposed to any change in the arm's length principal or to any proposals that would interfere with the independence of key artistic and cultural institutions.

The Minister's proposals, if implemented, would have a lasting and detrimental impact on the arts and cultural sector in Ireland. One can only draw the conclusion that such proposals are clearly not thought through. Rather, they are an exercise in optics by a Government that is obsessed with reducing the numbers of quangos and cost cutting, even when it makes no sense. It would seem that the Minister is going to forge ahead irrespective of the damage such cuts will have on cultural tourism, jobs, and society in general and on poor disadvantaged communities in particular. What is even worse is that this Government has not produced any information regarding cost benefit analysis, head-count reductions and so on that would justify the proposed changes. It is intent on embarking on a process of amalgamations, mergers, dissolution of independent boards and non-renewal of vital leadership roles.

The arts, artistic heritage and culture belong to all of the people on the island of Ireland. The Government of the day has a duty to foster, promote and preserve this national creativity. This is particularly important as we begin the decade of commemorations and enter a new era in terms of our national identity. Thus, it is imperative that we have independent, robust and well-funded national artistic and cultural institutions. Only then can the various commemorations be seen as an opportunity to revisit our past, with the expressed aim of building a more inclusive and equal society. If the Minister continues down the path of slashing funding to the arts then this opportunity will sadly have been lost.

Libraries, archives, exhibitions, museums, and community arts projects and so on need investment and should not be seen by short-sighted bureaucrats as an opportunity for cost cutting. With regard to the National Archives and the National Library, no one in these institutions objects to the idea of shared resources or to co-operating in common fields of interest. However, it needs to be acknowledged that the two institutions perform very different functions. The Minister needs to acknowledge this and to recognise that it is this uniqueness which makes these institutions invaluable national assets.

The National Library has custody of our great literary and estate manuscript collections and is an important public resource. The focus of the National Archives is solely on archives, most of them departmental files, which are different kinds of records to manuscript collections. The latter are vital for understanding the political, social and economic evolution of the Irish State. The cuts to the National Library budget have been disproportionate. From 2008 to 2012, its funding has been cut by 40% and its staff by 38%. In spite of this, it has delivered on key aspects of public service reform and innovation. It hosted 1.2 million visitors last year, promoted shared services, curated major exhibitions and made vast amounts of material available on-line. This debate is not about money or approaches to the arts. It is about autonomous governance, public ownership and resisting the bureaucratic centralisation of the arts and culture administration in Ireland.

If this Government was serious about reform it would do the opposite, by allowing genuine, autonomous and transparent governance of the cultural institutions, with unpaid board members who are independent of party politics and experts in their fields. It would meet without delay with the people who know best, namely, the various artistic and cultural organisations and stakeholders. It would value independent advice and input rather than seek to eliminate it. More important, it would desist from attempts to micro-manage complex institutions with rich histories under the pretence of cost cutting.

I call on the Minister to develop an all-Ireland approach to arts and culture and I urge him to remember that very rare institutions exist, the societal value of which far exceeds any monetary value.

Sinn Féin believes it is imperative that we preserve, safeguard and invest in the arts. If the past is to have a future and if the arts are to fulfil their potential as tools for integration and inclusion, then an all-Ireland approach must be the way forward. In the final analysis, the language of imagination, creativity, social inclusion and arts for all must replace the State-centred language of cost cutting, structural reform and bureaucratic control.

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