Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy will be glad to hear that in budget 2017, I secured a series of funding increases across the arts and cultural bodies under my remit. These include an extra €5 million for the Arts Council, which is an 8% increase; €2 million extra for the film board; an extra €1 million for Culture Ireland; a significant additional allocation of €3.5 million for the national cultural institutions; and a new funding stream of €5 million for the implementation of a Culture 2025-Ireland 2016 legacy programme, details of which I will be announcing shortly.

These increases will have a positive and distinct impact on arts provision around the country. I am particularly pleased that I have retained the majority of the once-off current funding provided in 2016 for commemorations for investment in arts and culture and that these amounts are now included in my Department’s baseline figures.

I understand that the source of the reference to 0.6% of GDP in the Deputy's question is a Council of Europe research project and that many European countries, including ten EU member states, are not included in the data. I understand also that the data are not standardised and are not comparable across countries. For example, local authority expenditure on the arts, the artists’ exemption tax relief, expenditure on public service broadcasting and the Irish language are not included in the figures for Ireland but comparable figures are included in the data for some other countries.

I have previously stated that further research on this issue is warranted and my Department is considering the matter at present. The issue of a definition of culture and of capturing public expenditure on culture is an element of the draft Culture 2025 framework policy, which was forwarded to the Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs for input in July last.

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