Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In the context of the arts, the House will be aware that the Government gave a commitment to double our spending on arts and culture over a seven-year period. That roughly equates to an increase of 10% or 10.5% every year. We exceeded that in the budget for 2019. There will be a 12% increase in funding for arts, culture and heritage. That is a combination of current and capital funding. That is invested in many ways in the national cultural institutions, in the Arts Council, through Screen Ireland - formerly the Irish Film Board - in Creative Ireland and various other different mechanisms such as the Heritage Council. Part of the programme and part of Project Ireland 2040 provide for a new national theatre to be built and for the Abbey to be demolished. It has already acquired some of the buildings around it, which will allow it to be demolished and rebuilt into a new state-of-the-art national theatre, of which I hope we will be extremely proud. I am sure people have been to the National Gallery since the renovation there. The gallery looks fabulous and what a national cultural institution should look like. I would certainly like to see those Abbey plans advanced very soon in order that we can have a new national theatre. I acknowledge, however, that a theatre is worth nothing without the artists and actors who perform in it. I had the opportunity to meet the chairman of the board of the Abbey Theatre not too long ago. I am confident that the board will want to respond to the concerns of the artistic community. There are differing views, as Deputy Boyd Barrett acknowledged, but I am confident the board will want to respond to those concerns. I expect it will do so. I do not believe it is the role of the Government to interfere in the programmes of individual theatres and I do not believe anybody in the House would want us to do that, but it is appropriate that the board should engage with the concerns.

On the incomes of artists and people involved in creative industries, it is like many businesses or industries, there are many forms of self-employment or many professions. Some people do very well and do very well financially while others are not so successful and do not do so well financially. We have done two things to help. First, we have amended the social welfare code. I did this approximately two years ago in order to allow people who are part-time artists and who are not making an adequate income or earning sufficient revenues from their art to qualify for jobseeker's payments and social protection without the requirement that they be seeking full-time employment. I am not sure how many people have availed of that but it is in place as an option and helps to set a minimum floor of income for the artists in question. We also changed the Competition Act to allow freelance artists to engage in collective bargaining in certain circumstances in a way that we do not allow the vast majority of self-employed people or professionals to do.

Regarding Deputy McDonald's question on health legislation, it is always the case that Departments, the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and Government have to prioritise legislation in the same way as the Oireachtas and the Seanad. It is not possible to do all legislation at the same time, either in government or in the Oireachtas, which, of course, the Government does not control. The priority for the last six months of 2018 was the abortion legislation, and that was passed. The House and the public wanted us to prioritise that legislation. In addition, the governance legislation to re-establish the HSE board is currently going through the Houses. The priority for quarters 1 and 2 of this year is health legislation relating to Brexit. People understand why that has to be prioritised. Brexit is scheduled to happen at the end of quarter 1 so that legislation has to be prioritised, as does the legislation to establish the CervicalCheck tribunal. They are the health legislative priorities for the first half of this year. However, work will continue on the assisted human reproduction Bill. I anticipate it will be published sometime this year and hopefully enacted. It is very complicated legislation. I recall reading all about it when I was Minister for Health. It will require much debate and some difficult decisions to be made because currently the whole area of assisted human reproduction in Ireland is not illegal but it is also not legislated for. There are many questions that will require decisions on our part as to what will and will not be legal, including what forms of surrogacy will be allowed and whether we will continue to allow the practice of anonymous donation of sperms and eggs. I can understand why people would want that to continue but if we are pursuing a child-centred policy, where children have the right to know who their parents are and that speaks to our history, perhaps that is something we should not allow. Therefore, there are many difficult judgment calls and decisions to be made. I imagine that will be teased by some very reflective sessions by the health committee.

See this speech in context