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

I am glad to say a lot of progress has been made, especially on pillar 1, which concerns enabling the creative potential of every child. We have had the teacher-artist training programme, which has been rolled out and extended to provide training for the largest number of teachers this year. Six centres in 2013 rolled out that arts in education training. It has now gone right across to all 21 education training centres. I was in Scoil Éanna in Ballybay only a couple of weeks ago and two teachers there had availed of the training and they are very much looking forward now to the next stage of it, which is the implementation of the creative children plan. That will be launched very shortly. We are working with the Departments of Education and Skills and Children and Youth Affairs in developing this further. This is the first time three Departments, the Arts Council and the national cultural institutions have all come together to develop and implement the plan. It is very important. Many things happened as part of Culture Night, which is getting very popular right across the country. There were loads of events in every single county this year. We are continuing to expand what we have but it is also very important that we all work together. It is a matter of engaging more children and more communities in the arts, and that is what this plan, Creative Ireland, is about. It is about working on a collaborative basis.

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