Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I start by complimenting the Minister on bringing forward this legislation, which has been a while in gestation. The Bill is welcomed by the Fianna Fáil Party, and we will support it in principle, although we may provide some amendments on Committee Stage. As the Bill sets out, the National Concert Hall will be the national venue for the performance, appreciation and enjoyment of musical, creative, artistic and cultural activities. It will also host concerts and recitals of artistic, educational and cultural value. It has been doing that very successfully for a number of years. I had a recent meeting with the chief executive officer, Mr. Simon Taylor, and one could not but be impressed by the level of commitment and the innovative and creative approach that the concert hall and its management is adapting to its remit.

The central aim of the Bill is to provide the statutory basis for the conversion of the National Concert Hall from a company limited by guarantee to a statutory body. The general belief is that the changed status will provide greater transparency and accountability to the corporate governance, role and future development of the National Concert Hall. The change must also be viewed in context of public sector reform generally and the proposed consistent approach to the corporate governance arrangements of the national cultural institutions.

As the Minister mentioned, this Bill was subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht. This involved public hearings with the relevant stakeholders, and one of the key issues that arose was the independence of the National Concert Hall under the proposed new corporate governance structure, whether it should be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General, whether it would be come under the remit of freedom of information law, the relationship with RTE and the future role of fund-raising in the development of the National Concert Hall. We had occasion here in the past to express some concern about previous fund-raising activities that were attempted.

The National Concert Hall is a national cultural institution and a centre of excellence for music in Ireland.

It has operated from its home on Earlsfort Terrace for over three decades, since 1981. It has a 1,200-seat auditorium and more than 300,000 visitors on an annual basis. That is a figure the public at large might not appreciate. As we look to the future development of our cultural institutions, we must be conscious of the importance of our cultural institutions, including the National Concert Hall, as we market Dublin as a tourist venue, for example. We all want to work towards a point where the performances held there can be seen as an intrinsic attraction to the country and to Dublin, in particular. The National Concert Hall runs more than 1,000 events annually, ranging over classical, opera, jazz, musicals and popular music. While it has a public service remit and receives State funding, it will continue to derive most of its income from its own commercial activities. We need to emphasise that it is the efficient and effective running of the concert hall that is the major funder of its activities and it is not relying only on the Government for funding.

Those who run the National Concert Hall have obviously welcomed the legislation, saying that it presents an opportunity to establish in law the national standing of the National Concert Hall and to put it on an equal footing with other national statutory cultural bodies. Significantly, they also believe the legislation offers the potential to strengthen the hall's mandate and organisational capacity and to secure its position as a cultural asset of national importance and considerable international standing as well as providing a foundation for its further development as the national centre of excellence for the performance of music.

When the chair of the National Concert Hall appeared before the joint committee last year, he spoke of the need to balance the public interest role of the hall as a national venue with the challenges of conducting much of the operations in a commercial environment. He pointed out that this combination of public service and commercial activity was well reflected by the breakdown of the hall's direct income for 2013. In that year, two thirds, €4.563 million, of the direct income was derived from its own income generating activities while one third, €2.33 million, was received from the State by way of a grant-in-aid. The self-generated income includes diverse elements such as ticket sales, charges and commissions on the hire of the hall to external promoters, rental income from RTE in respect of the residency by the symphony orchestra, income from the catering and bar franchise, membership fees, corporate associates, commercial sponsorship, advertising and philanthropy.

In recent discussions with Mr. Taylor, one of the things that particularly interested me was hearing of the work the NCH is doing with hospitals and the way in which it is bringing music therapy into our hospitals. One wonders, as we consider the area of philanthropy, which is of enormous importance, whether there is sufficiently widespread public appreciation of the work being done in that area and whether the connection with hospitals and through hospitals with pharmaceutical companies based in Ireland could benefit institutions like the National Concert Hall and whether such companies could realise the benefit of being associated with the work of the concert hall. He made it very clear that in the light of such competing demands, legislation should provide a clear mandate for the concert hall through the articulation of statutory functions that would be well aligned with governance provisions appropriate to its commercial challenges.

The National Concert Hall has both a public service and commercial remit and in 2014 made a direct economic contribution of over €38 million to the economy. During this period, it had a turnover of over €6.8 million, box office ticket sales of just over €7 million, and hosted close to 900 events, securing the third highest attendance figures to date, with almost 330,000 people coming through its doors.

The chief executive of the concert hall said that 2014 was an important year in realising the strategy for the wider redevelopment of the Earlsfort Terrace site as the dedicated centre of musical performance, ensuring the long-term future of the hall and site itself. In 2007, the previous Government ensured the long-term future of the National Concert Hall at Earlsfort Terrace with the purchase of the entire site from University College Dublin, giving the opportunity to fulfil the true potential of the National Concert Hall. Its vision is to be one of the top concert halls in the world. This refurbished National Concert Hall will continue to be home to the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, along with an expanding group of resident ensembles and organisations. The NCH says that redevelopment plans promise a unique visitor and audience experience, an open, welcoming, inspiring place, which is socially and culturally inclusive. Future plans for the concert hall include refurbishment of the Kevin Barry rooms into a 130-seat multi-purpose performance space by 2016; the transformation of the old medical library into a new 500-seat recital hall; a refurbished and renovated 1,200-seat auditorium; a jazz club; rehearsal spaces; recording studios; and creative incubation spaces. The idea of creative incubation spaces is of enormous value to the country as a whole because we all recognise the value of nurturing, supporting and encouraging our young artists.

The National Concert Hall is clear on its plans to continue to generate significant levels of income from its own activities, including philanthropic donations. With regard to philanthropy, it is intended to look for new supporters among the diaspora. As I have suggested, it would be no harm to look among the pharmaceutical community in this country as well.

The Fianna Fáil Party very much welcomes the proposed activities to mark 2016 in the concert hall. The restoration of the Kevin Barry rooms, which were used for the treaty ratification debates, will be completed and seven signature concerts will be staged over seven days during Easter week next year, arranged around the key themes of the Proclamation.

The national cultural institutions of Ireland are the repositories of our heritage and culture and play a fundamental role in the provision of arts and culture to Irish citizens. Traditionally, other less well-resourced bodies in the arts sector have relied on them to embrace a leadership role in terms of best practice, excellence and remuneration. However, in recent years the national cultural institutions have experienced major budget cuts - some of up to 40% - and are subject to the public service recruitment ban, which has left them constrained in terms of the service they can provide to the public. I acknowledge that the Minister has recently moved to provide additional funding.

The roll-back by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht of the 1997 Act, which established the autonomy of the national cultural institutions, has been widely greeted with dismay. One of the interesting things about this legislation is that she has responded to criticism arising from the activities around the other cultural institutions. In respect of the initial draft of this Bill, people said, and we would have said, quite properly, that the arms' length approach was vitally important. Some might say that we have moved from an intolerable level of ministerial involvement to a point where there seems to be a total absence of ministerial oversight. One wonders what the Minister would say to that. We, in the Fianna Fáil Party, believe the amalgamation of the National Archives, the National Library and the Irish Manuscripts Commission and the dissolution of their respective boards is a regressive act which will have long-term consequences for cultural provision in Ireland. Culture Ireland has already been subsumed into the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and it is hard not to see the move to limit the independence of these institutions as a further act of centralising power within the parent Department, the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Despite requests from Fianna Fáil to see evidence of the cost-saving value of these amalgamations, the Government has not provided a credible cost-benefit analysis to back it up.

We welcome the former Minister, Deputy Deenihan's successful negotiations with the Bank of Ireland, for example. It is good that he is in the House when we are able to say something positive. His work on developing the College Green building as a cultural centre is welcome.

It is all very well negotiating the deal securing the building, but we want to be assured that the additional funding to enable it be established, staffed and operated effectively is also forthcoming. We urge the Minister to publish the staffing and resourcing plans for the cultural centre to avoid the sort of debacle we saw with the Limerick city of culture last year.

I could go on at length but I will conclude by welcoming the Bill. We are in large measure supportive of what is proposed. We believe passionately in the cultural institutions being given the opportunity to operate at arm's length from Government. There is a question to be answered as to whether this legislation removes entirely, from a strategic point of view, the role of the Minister and the Oireachtas in providing an input to the strategic planning for the National Concert Hall. The other question I have is whether the legislation, as currently constructed, is narrow and unambitious in scope and Dublin-centric in that it focuses on the National Concert Hall as a venue and entity on Earlsfort Terrace and does not envisage a situation developing in the future where, for example, the National Concert Hall might be the agency most appropriate to run, dare I say, the Wexford Opera Festival or a venue in Cork or even in Monaghan. To the extent that legislation is vitally important and sets out some degree of control and influence over the future direction in which we may head, I wonder whether it needs amendment to envisage future developments, such as those to which I allude, whereby the scope of a developing, progressive and outward-looking concert hall, continuing to successfully deliver excellence in performance and opportunities in Dublin, should be allowed the opportunity to be able to expand to provide cultural experiences in other parts of the country, if that were appropriate or possible at some stage in the future.

We support the Bill, commend the Minister on bringing it forward and reserve the right to bring forward amendments at a later Stage.

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