David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to contribute to this topic and I congratulate the Minister on his work in the area. I consulted the Philanthropy Ireland website and came across a nice definition:

Philanthropy is a particular kind of charitable giving. It is focused on the root causes of problems and making a sustainable improvement, as distinct from contributing to immediate relief. Philanthropy is not the exclusive preserve of very wealthy people [which is important]. Money is given with a degree of reflection and a clear purpose.

That is a useful definition. What do we mean when we talk about the arts and putting philanthropy and the arts together? When we think about the arts we think about visual art, such as photography, paintings and sculpture, and the literary arts, such as poetry, novels and short stories, and the performing arts, such as music, dance, mime, theatre, opera and film. It is creative. One definition described it as being food for the soul, which is a nice way of describing the arts. The previous speaker referred to bronze sculptures being stolen. Such sculptures are put there for a purpose and are very often beautiful. Art entertains us and challenges us and we enjoy it. It is food for the soul in many ways.

Artistic people are creative and they give of their time and talent to put in place the arts. Trying to marry philanthropy, the practice of charitable giving and getting people to donate, and art is very important. The Minister said that Ireland is one of the great philanthropic countries but I do not agree. The Ireland Funds says that, although philanthropy has grown rapidly in the past decade, it is still in its infancy here. We can compare giving in Ireland to giving in other countries, such as the United States, where there are over 1 million public charities and where three out of four people donate, 16 million people sit on non-profit boards and 65 million people volunteer regularly. Some $300 billion was given to charity last year. There is a tradition and culture of charitable foundations in the United States. It has some 101,000 foundations, compared to 9,000 in the UK and 26 in Ireland. The scale of population is different but the Minister may agree we have a long way to go.

See this speech in context