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

Creative Ireland is not a funding body. It was set up to collaborate and work with all the different agencies. The Deputy mentioned a number of them. The creative children programme, which followed on from the arts in education programme, will get €1 million in 2017. The local authorities got €1 million in funding last year. I did not have an input in deciding how it was spent. The local authorities supported a number of different initiatives in their own counties. It has been very successful. Culture teams have been set up in every local authority. The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government gave them a further €1 million so they had €2 million in total to support different initiatives within their own local authority. I had absolutely no input into that funding. The purpose of Creative Ireland is to work collaboratively across the different agencies to put culture and creativity at the heart of society. It is working very well. Creative Ireland had a presence at a number of festivals around the country. We engage with several key cultural partners at various important national events and festivals. The Deputy mentioned one that was in that group. Its purpose was to get the message out about Creative Ireland.

See this speech in context