Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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9. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will restore the budget for the arts for 2017 to the level agreed for 2016; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31153/16]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I will continue on the same theme. There were many retrograde aspects to the austerity cuts that began in 2008. They were begun by Fianna Fáil when it started to cut the arts budget. It was cut by €30 million. If ever there was a misguided set of cuts it was in this area. The point of our questions and the disappointment expressed by the arts community about this budget is that there is no recognition that we need, at the very minimum, the full restoration of the cuts that were imposed and to move towards a reasonable level of overall arts expenditure.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I am glad to report, as in my reply to Deputy Barry, that I have retained the majority of the €18 million current funding which was provided for the 2016 commemorations for reallocation to arts and cultural purposes within my Department’s Vote. It will, therefore, become part of the baseline figures for my Department, meaning it will be carried forward into future years. As I previously outlined, budget 2017 will include an additional €5 million for the Arts Council, an 8% increase in its annual budget; increased funding for all the national cultural institutions; an increase of €2 million for the Irish Film Board and €1 million for Culture Ireland; and an additional €1 million for the Heritage Council. I have also secured a new funding stream of €5 million for the implementation of a Culture 2025-Ireland 2016 legacy programme, which will allow me to build on the positive legacy of the Ireland 2016 commemorations. I will be announcing details of this new initiative shortly.

All of this represents real and substantial funding increases across the arts and cultural area and has been welcomed across the sector. It also reaffirms the commitment of the Government to increase funding for the arts progressively as the economy improves, as set out in A Programme for a Partnership Government.

It should be noted that the majority of the €49 million allocation to my Department for this year’s Ireland 2016 centenary programme was capital funding that went towards a series of permanent reminder projects, including the witness history visitor centre at the GPO, the refurbishment of Richmond Barracks and the Kevin Barry rooms at the National Concert Hall. As a result of the completion of the various permanent reminder projects, the capital funding provided for them will not be required in 2017. The projects will continue to be a positive and lasting legacy for the people of Ireland.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Poverty of vision was a fairly apt description of the budget as a whole. It was just scraps here and there. Nowhere is that phrase more apt than in the area of arts, which is about vision. It is true there was a small increase in the allocations for certain agencies and institutions over and above last year. That has been welcomed by those institutions. We had a lengthy debate in here. The Minister knows that the National Campaign for the Arts has asked for much more than that. It asked specifically that the €50 million - not €18 million - that was provided on a once-off basis be retained in full to begin to move us even in a small way in the direction of European average levels of spending in the area of arts. We have a pitifully low level in a country whose revolutionary tradition was infused with the vision of artists who would turn in their graves if they thought the celebration of that cultural tradition was a once-off event. It should be about seriously ramping up the investment in our artists, not just in some institutions but in the artists and the arts generally.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I will be clear. The investment in our artists, which is the most important thing, is €18 million in current expenditure.

That investment will go into a number of different areas. The Arts Council will get an extra €5 million. People are getting confused between capital and current expenditure. The point is that we have built those projects. They are completed, which is good news. There is also other good news. There is a €3 million capital investment programme for arts centres throughout the country. The applications have come to my Department and they will be assessed shortly, so I will be able to distribute funding for capital projects across the country. The point is that there is €18 million available, which certainly is not scraps in my book. It is a lot of money and I am glad we have it for the arts and culture sector.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The vast majority of artists in this country live in absolute poverty. Let us start with that reality. Garry Hynes put it well when she said:

I hate that the arts are so underfunded ... How proud we are of our artists but we're not proud enough to make the lives of the people who work in the industry better.

That is the reality. This level of funding simply will not impact on that in any significant way. To fail to acknowledge that the overall level of funding is still well short of what it was in 2008, when the arts were wrongly assaulted for an economic crisis they did not cause, shows a complete poverty of vision. That is my point. The minimum ask is that the entire €50 million, not a portion of it, should be retained. That would not even bring us to 0.6% from the abysmal 0.1%. It is retrograde. I have not even mentioned the 9% cut for the Irish language, which is unbelievably retrograde. It is a philistine failure to recognise the importance of this sector.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Garry Hynes runs the very successful Druid Theatre Company in Galway. I do not know when that comment was made but I am sure she, like other organisations, will welcome the increase. I have been very clear that as the economy continues to improve I wish to see more money invested in the arts. I have achieved that since 2014. Every year has seen an increase in investment in the arts. It is my view that 2016 has been a wonderful year. I repeat that €18 million is going directly to the arts and culture budget in my Department. The remainder was for capital projects and those projects are finished. I do not have to do them again.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister could not keep the €50 million.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Capital money is for building. It is for bricks on mortar.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I can provide the Minister with a few arts capital projects.