Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Deputy Niamh Smyth on this very timely motion. I speak as a person who had my first interaction with the arts as a politician in the mid-1980s when I was a member of Cork Corporation. I served as chairperson of the arts committee at that time. I had wonderful interactions with the arts community and young artists in the city, including Triskel Arts Centre, Graffiti Theatre Company, the Opera House, the Everyman Theatre, the National Sculpture Factory and many more. What struck me was the creativity of the arts community and the degree to which it brought a lot to my world as a young politician at that time. The grants we allocated to various organisations went a long way. Very small amounts of money acted as seed capital and produced extraordinary results, and leveraged far more on top of the amounts allocated by the local authority. The city council in Cork was and still is a very progressive body and was pioneering in terms of the advancement of the arts in the city. It understood the relationship and importance for the city of the promotion of the arts. It is in that context that the motion was tabled by Deputy Smyth. There is a need for the political world to address the imperative for the arts to come back to the centrality of political decision-making and the kind of society we want.

I want to start by addressing the changed status of the arts portfolio at Cabinet. We all know the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is not responsible for this. The Taoiseach decides on the division of responsibility. Under the last two Governments, the Department was called, respectively, the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism and the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. In both cases the arts came first. It has now it has been relegated to third place, after regional development and rural affairs, subjects which have no obvious connection to the arts except in the most general sense. While it is flattering that the Minister has been given additional responsibilities, it remains to be seen how much clout they will carry. What sort of budgets will be involved? Are the rules more in the nature of co-ordination, or designed to convey that Fine Gael in government cares about rural Ireland? The structure of the Department is very unclear.

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Even if they get more money, is there any necessary read-across for the arts? Will the arts be given an active role in regional development?

The perception in the arts community is that the arts, never high on the Government's list of priorities, has slipped further back. I acknowledge that the arts did suffer some cutbacks under Fianna Fáil after the crash in 2008, but the cuts came after many years of steady increases in resources. I also point out that the then Minister, Martin Cullen, was to the forefront in challenging the 2009 McCarthy report, which suggested that the arts were not really a priority at a time of economic difficulty, implying that they could and should be cut back disproportionately. I further make the point that a serious backlog of investment is needed in the national cultural institutions and, while a start is being made, much more needs to be done.

I am happy to acknowledge and praise the efforts and resources put into the 1916 commemoration, but now some of the resources that will be freed up when the major investment projects are finished need to be put into supporting and extending sustainable arts infrastructure across the regions. We must also remember that many of those who took part in the Easter Rising were important cultural figures with an engagement, interest and involvement in the arts, which, unfortunately, has only intermittently characterised Government interest in an independent Ireland. The leaders of 1916 loved, respected and valued the arts. They got the arts. Sadly, there is a real and deeply held belief that the Government does not get the arts.

Recently an article was published in the name of the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, in The Sunday Times, which attempted to defend what the Government has done and offer reassurance for the future. Yet I suspect many, indeed most, who read it were unconvinced and many others were angered and bemused. The Minister wrote that "a rumbling of discontent within the arts community has steadily developed into a roar" and spoke about how the campaign for the arts had managed to "garner the support, of the Oscar-nominate[d] director Lenny Abrahamson". The tone was dismissive to say the least, but the Minister then had the gall to write, "In the wake of the centenary events we have an unprecedented opportunity to seize upon the renewed passion, connection and pride in our culture and our heritage". First, I do not accept that this was a connection in need of renewal, but even if one accepts the premise, it is remarkable that the Government should seize the opportunity by downgrading the arts. The Minister also said there was "an onus not just on the government to show its commitment to our culture, but also on the sector itself to look outwards rather than within". That is frankly ludicrous. The fact is that our artists have always looked outward - it is the Government that has turned inward. I recall the very first Global Irish Economic Forum at Farmleigh, at which several major ex-pat chief executive officers from all over the world who had made it to the highest levels of the corporate world came back and told everyone at the gathering - policy makers and decision makers - that Ireland's calling card externally was the arts, literature, and creativity.

In the newspaper article, the Minister also said "the arts community has a choice: to condemn this government, based upon an unfounded belief that it has no regard for the arts, or to work constructively together and bring forward ideas in the best interests of the sector and the wider community". The arts sector was already doing that, and has always been committed to doing that; it is the Government that is holding the sector back. She also wrote:

We are renowned around the world for our incredible cultural legacy, but it is time we focused more on the positive impact of the arts at home. Why not promote our wealth of contemporary culture as an asset when we are seeking to attract some of the world's best companies to invest here?

That has already happened, but the downgrading of the portfolio means that now we will have less credibility in doing so and people will be less convinced. In an ideal world the arts are not really about attracting companies or anything like that; they have their own intrinsic value and purpose. None the less, I deplore the way the arts sector has been treated. The Minister might say we are wrong in our assertions, but that is the perception across the board within the arts community and that is the view of those in the field. Why would the arts community be convinced when we consider the shambles of how, under the previous Government, Limerick was selected but then not supported as City of Culture, leaving cultural institutions and arts organisations there to pick through the political debris? We also saw the gross misuse of the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, IMMA, as the life raft of choice to ferry a Fine Gael candidate into a Seanad seat. That disregard for the fundamental principle of the independence of arts organisations and the simultaneous envy, fear or disregard for independent scholars and artists is fully continued in the way critically important boards are currently filled. Of 12 people appointed by the Minister last Friday to fill a board of 16 members to take change of the National Museum, only six had skills directly relevant to the mission of the museum. Others, all of whom are highly qualified people in their sphere who should be thanked for their willingness to serve, might in fewer numbers form a valuable part of the overall skills matrix on the board. What is striking is not the good people concerned, but the continuing trend of board appointments in arts, heritage and culture, where specialists and practitioners are conspicuously under-represented. The lack of esteem and the condescending belief that artists and scholars who run remarkable organisations on a shoestring need to be minded or marketed by professionals is appalling. Artists and scholars are true professionals. They are the experts. They give their whole life to their work. For them, that work is their life. They demand respect, an end to condescension and to belittling disregard, and on their behalf I repeat that demand in Dáil Eireann today.

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