Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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11. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the steps he has taken to address financial planning and oversight difficulties in Arts centres across the country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19265/13]

Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael)
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My Department has no role in the management or the operation of any art centre or in providing current funding to arts centres. Many such centres are owned by, and some are managed by, the relevant local authority. Most receive some or all of their operational funding from the local authorities. The Arts Council also has a role in that it provides programming funding in respect of many arts centres.

As the Deputy will be aware, the Arts Council is the principal agency through which State funding is channelled to the arts. Government policy on the arts is set out in the programme for Government. While the Arts Council receives its overall funding allocation from my Department, decisions on the expenditure of those funds are a matter for the Arts Council itself. Under the Arts Act 2003, the Arts Council is statutorily independent in its day-to-day operations and I am precluded by law from intervening in the council's decisions on funding. The allocation to the Arts Council in 2013 is €60.7 million.

In any case, arts centres are independent organisations and matters to which the Deputy refers, such as financial planning and-or oversight difficulties, are first and foremost a matter for the board of the relevant arts centre.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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To a certain extent, I understand the Minister's response but he responded to me last month on the issue of the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick. We all recognised the very valuable contribution that centre had made and all of us expressed concern that for the sake of €300,000, that it went into liquidation. I put this question to the Minister in the context of the overarching role the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has in this regard. What sort of communication has taken place in the last month or so between the Minister, his Department, the Arts Council and the local authorities? What has been done by the Department, if anything, to ensure the financial model being followed by arts centres, which have really brought the visual arts and the arts in their broadest sense to people throughout the country, does not lead them into the predicament the Belltable Arts Centre was led?

Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael)
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As I pointed out to the Deputy, responsibility for most arts centres lies with the local authorities. This evening I will address the local authorities' arts officers and I might mention the challenges they face in regard to the running of arts centres. The Arts Council would have direct contact with the various arts centres because it provides the funding. As the Deputy stressed, the arms length approach certainly prevails when it comes to the Arts Council.

I am prohibited by law from advising arts centres on what to do. If some of the arts centres are funded by my Department through the ACCESS scheme or other schemes, then we would have some lean on those centres. We would have regular contact with centres to which we have provided funding because we have an obligation to ensure the taxpayers' investment is protected as much as possible.

This year, in conjunction with Fáilte Ireland, my Department is also initiating a pilot programme, the Historic Towns Initiative, in Youghal, Westport and Listowel with the Heritage Council and the local authorities in each town. This initiative is intended to promote heritage-led regeneration with the objective of harnessing cultural heritage to create desirable places to live, do business and visit. The redevelopment of Killarney House in Killarney National Park will also be a major tourism asset in years to come. These are but a sample of the overall range of initiatives and programmes my Department is helping to promote, support or guide as a means of preserving the quality and diversity of our heritage, which in turn, is basis for positively promoting that heritage abroad.

On the broader issue of North/South cooperation, my Department’s remit includes the Waterways Ireland and the Language Body (encompassing Foras na Gaeilge and the Ulster Scots Agency) which have a key role in tourism and cultural development and my Department also works on a range of issues across the area of built heritage, arts and culture and the natural heritage with public agencies in Northern Ireland where opportunities for co-operation arise.

The Deputy makes many good proposals at Question Time. I take his point because I am connected with a number of arts centres and know the challenges they face. There could be an overall focus on how arts centres structure their businesses in order to survive.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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We will have to agree to disagree on the issue of operating at arm's length. That said, I am not expecting the Minister to micro-manage arts centres, as he knows, but it is reasonable for the public to expect the Minister responsible for the arts to have a discussion with the local authorities and the Arts Council to ensure there are proper models of financial management in place. The taxpayer has invested substantially in arts centres. We depend on them to bring the arts alive for so many citizens. They play a vital role in that regard. I encourage the Minister, while adopting an arm's length approach, to stimulate both the Arts Council and local authorities to fulfil the role they should be playing in this regard.

Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael)
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I will certainly convey the Deputy's suggestions to the Arts Council and the local authorities. A good example of where the Department really got involved in the past two years was in respect of the Light House Cinema, which was closed. It is now up and running again and doing very well. I am delighted to say I was there on a few occasions recently, including for the opening of a film festival and to see a film made in County Kerry on rural isolation. I was delighted to see the level of activity in the cinema. This is an example of where there was intervention. Perhaps this type of intervention might be useful in other cases. I will certainly take the Deputy's point on board. Perhaps there is merit in staff from the Arts Council sitting around a table with us and representatives of the local authorities. This occurred recently with regard to three projects that were being challenged in certain ways. We could work in this manner on a more extensive basis. I thank the Deputy for his suggestion.