Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad that Fine Gael was in a position to help this sector. It had to be cut during the recession but it was not done by our Government. It is a core principle of the plan that the voice of children and young people be heard, in both the development and delivery of programmes. Every cent has to be accounted for and is accounted for, and I gave some of the figures for the number of children who are involved, particularly in the Creative Youth programme for schools. There are 149 schools in this and it is an open process, which was launched on 12 February 2018.

There are also a lot of early years CPD projects for teachers, such as one for primary schools and one for post-primary schools, and a Creative Schools cluster scheme for the out-of-school sector, as well as a once-off early year bursary. In order to measure outcomes and deliver best practice, there is a research programme and digital mapping will establish baseline data. There is also support for the national repository for arts and education research. All of these things will give us measurable results for how we are delivering on the projects.

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