Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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50. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the progress made on the Creative Ireland programme to date in 2017; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [47910/17]

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I acknowledge that the Creative Ireland programme's genesis was in last year's 2016 commemorations. I welcome it and that we can focus on the well-being of our citizens with the Creative Ireland programme as well as focusing on our identity as a nation, which is important for us and the arts community, for everyone to be able to experience that. Has the Minister had any update on progress across the country under Creative Ireland 2017?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Creative Ireland programme is a high level, high ambition, five-year initiative, which aims to place creativity at the centre of public policy. The launch document for the programme identified ten actions for 2017, under five specific pillars and there has been significant progress on their delivery. The position is as follows.

Under pillar 1, my Department is finalising a draft of a Creative Children plan for the period 2018 to 2022 in conjunction with the Departments of Education and Skills, and Children and Youth Affairs and the Arts Council. I expect that will be launched later this year. With regard to pillar 2, culture teams have been established in each of the 31 local authorities and each local authority produced a culture and creativity plan for 2017. Each local authority is now in the process of drawing up five-year strategic creativity plans which will be published in early 2018. The first Cruinniú na Cásca was launched on Easter Monday with the theme inclusion and diversity and work is now under way to develop our approach to Cruinniú in 2018. A pilot scheme to assist self-employed artists who have applied for jobseeker's allowance was put in place by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection last June.

Under pillar 3, my Department is finalising a capital investment programme for culture and heritage and has worked with the national cultural institutions on their plans under the programme. Work is progressing on the preparation of a plan for Ireland to become a global hub for the production of film, television drama and animation in accordance with pillar 4. A unified international identity and communications programme for Ireland was rolled out under pillar 5. This includes a new portal website for Ireland, www.ireland.ie, which has been viewed more than 2 million times around the world.

A forum entitled, Culture, Wellbeing and the Creative Society, Building the Policy Agenda, will take place on 13 December in Dublin Castle. The forum will also be the platform to launch the European Year of Cultural Heritage in Ireland. The European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport will attend that conference. Huge strides have been made progressing the Creative Ireland programme in its first year and I look forward to building on this success in 2018.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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It is a good approach to the Creative Ireland programme to have a culture team and that it is recognised in local authorities, as the Minister has acknowledged and recognised. The local authorities can bring those policies down to a local level. We saw that last year local authorities worked with communities. What communities can do when encouraged and given support is extraordinary. I looked at ireland.ieearlier and it is very good. There is scope to expand it and I imagine that is being considered. I would also like to ask the Minister to consider a report from the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in 2015, which examined the potential for job creation, innovation and balanced economic development in the creative economy where the tri-sector categorisation of the creative economy included creative expression, application and technology. It fits in perfectly to Creative Ireland.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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We want to work with all stakeholders through the Creative Ireland programme. The most important programme, which are rolling out shortly, is the creative children programme which, as the Deputy says, will encourage creativity in children. The aim is that, by 2022, every child will have access to tuition in music, drama, coding and art. It is important that we instill a love of art in young people. I was delighted that I was able to support a science festival through the Creative Ireland programme. When one sees how everything will be run by robots as we look forward, such as was shown at the science festival, we need to remember that we need somebody to programme them which requires creativity and thinking outside the box.

That is what I want to encourage through our creative children plan. I believe this to be important.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for her answer. Following on from my earlier comments about the local authorities and how crucial they are in delivering the cultural policy at local level, I wonder if it is something the Minister would see happening around the capital programme. I am thinking of the counties I am more familiar with such as Offaly for example, where we have the Birr Theatre and Arts Centre, the Dunamaise theatre in Laois, and the new amphitheatre in Cloughjordan, all of which have been very well funded by the Department over the years. They are receiving ongoing public funding. Does the Minister see any new programmes being brought forward to help them to innovate and develop their own infrastructure there?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The arts and culture scheme, as the Deputy has said, has been very successful, as are the culture teams in the local authorities. The local authorities have been wonderful in putting together the culture teams and in the work they do.

With regard to the arts and culture capital scheme, some €10 million has been awarded to more than 120 arts centres, theatres, galleries and performance spaces across the State. This is the largest investment in our local and regional arts infrastructure in a decade. Deputies will be glad to hear that 85% of the funding went to projects outside Dublin. The scheme links in very well with pillar 2 of the Creative Ireland programme, to enable creativity in every community. As the Deputy has pointed out, a number of projects in Laois-Offaly received funding: Birr Stage Guild Ltd. received €32,844 under strand 1; Teach Ceoil in Killeagh received €13,496 under strand 3; Laois arts centre received €20,000. I am aware the Deputy has been very supportive of all these local projects and the good news is that I have been able to secure additional capital funding in budget 2018. I hope to be in a position to invite applications for a further round of the scheme in the coming months.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Did Deputy Smyth indicate that she wanted to ask a question?

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I have a supplementary question. Have I come in at the wrong time?

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I ask the Deputy to be very brief.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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It concerns the Creative Ireland programme. I do not mean to sound repetitive but-----

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Is the Deputy's query related to the question before the House?

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Yes. It is about the Creative Ireland question. With regard to funding, the Minister said it is not a funding issue but I am aware of festivals that received funding through Creative Ireland. Through the simple guise of putting forward an expression of interest they received funding as part of their festival. The Minister cannot say there is not funding going out from Creative Ireland. Separate to the Arts Council and separate to anybody else the Minister's Department and Creative Ireland have been accepting expressions of interest and getting funding based on that. This has not been advertised anywhere.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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There were a number of different festivals across the country that received support this past year because we wanted to get Creative Ireland into those festivals-----

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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So it is a funding agency.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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No. I can provide a list to the Deputy. There was a number. The Deputy mentioned Galway, which got funding, and we did that to promote Creative Ireland. We wanted more people to engage with it and get involved in the programme.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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It is a funding agency.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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No it is not.