Dáil debates

Tuesday, 23 January 2018

Priority Questions

Departmental Expenditure

4:45 pm

Photo of Niamh SmythNiamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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66. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the rationale for the decision to allocate €0.9 million of the Creative Ireland programme budget to initiatives under the heading, citizen engagement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3356/18]

Photo of Niamh SmythNiamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I congratulate the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Madigan, on her elevation and promotion to the Cabinet. Will the Minister explain the decision to allocate €0.9 million of the Creative Ireland budget to citizen engagement?

Photo of Pat GallagherPat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Comhghairdeas, a Aire, as ucht do cheapachán.

Photo of Josepha MadiganJosepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I thank Deputy Smyth for bringing this question to the House. As part of the 2017 Creative Ireland programme, my Department undertook a comprehensive citizen engagement programme, to which the Deputy alluded, to showcase the range and depth of Ireland's cultural and creative offering. This is to encourage participation in arts and creative activities as a means of individual, collective and societal well-being and to build awareness of the Creative Ireland programme, particularly in its first year.

The vision of the Creative Ireland programme is that every person in Ireland should have the opportunity to realise his or her full creative potential. This represents a new approach to creativity and cultural policy and therefore required a substantial and sustained communications programme in 2017. A combination of approaches and platforms were used to maximise impact taking account of the diversity of the target audiences.

The development of the citizen engagement programme was very much informed by the positive experience of previous programmes, particularly the approach taken in the Ireland 2016 centenary programme. In addition, statistics relating to readership of national and regional newspapers, listenership to local radio and increased use of social media, especially by younger people, all informed the choices made. The programme was also designed to have as wide a reach as possible, including in rural areas.

Expenditure included supplements and resource material published in national newspapers, features in the regional press and regional broadcast media, which optimised the Creative Ireland programme online presence via two bespoke websites and associated social media content. It also was about building awareness of the programme among the Irish diaspora in the United States.

In addition, the opportunity was taken in the initial year of the programme to engage and collaborate with several key cultural partners at various significant national events and festivals to promote the objectives of the programme and encourage deeper appreciation of the role of creativity in Irish life. It was also envisaged that where opportunities arose, the Creative Ireland programme would engage with specific initiatives throughout 2017 to communicate the objectives of the programme.

A full breakdown of how the Creative Ireland programme budget was spent in 2017 including all the elements referred to above is provided on my Department's Creative Ireland programme website. That breakdown of costs is available if Deputy Smyth is looking for it.

Photo of Niamh SmythNiamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the reply. I have the 2017 end of year report in front of me. At a very quick glance, one can see a huge proportion of the funds in total have been spent on media and the promotion of the Creative Ireland programme, especially under the heading of citizen engagement. In 2017 the budget for creative Ireland was €5 million. Of this €0.9 million was spent on citizen engagement. Almost €400,000 was spent on supplements and articles in national newspapers, €245,000 was spent on advertisements in regional newspapers and radio stations, €165,000 was spent on what is described as optimising the Creative Ireland programme's online presence and €86,000 was spent on media management fees. A further €0.6 million was spent on web and digital media content. Each cent of public money that is spent on slogans, images and social media advertising budgets is money that is directed away from the artists. My main concern is that the money for Creative Ireland is not actually reaching the artists themselves. Perhaps the Minister will respond to this.

Photo of Josepha MadiganJosepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the reasons for Deputy Smyth asking this question but I strongly disagree. I believe the spend is justified, particularly in the first year of the programme. This is a communication platform across the board where we highlight the Creative Ireland programme. In the breakdown of the €5 million budget for 2017, while €900,000 went towards citizen engagement, Cruinniú na Cásca received €1.25 million and the local authority partnership received €1 million. The events, festivals and partnerships sector received €490,000, digital content spend was €400,000, international spend was €200,000, administrative support received €500,000 and other initiatives received €260,000. For people to have creativity at the heart of policy making and for them to be aware of it, we have to highlight it, especially in the first year of the programme. We will use citizen engagement again this year. We do not know yet exactly how much it will be. This was a widespread and warranted communications strategy. It presented value for money and my Department is very satisfied about it.

Photo of Niamh SmythNiamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister has managed to reaffirm my concerns about how the Creative Ireland moneys are spent. As the Minister has outlined, almost €1 million is media driven and centres on the umbrella and slogan of Creative Ireland, instead of actually reaching the artists and the heart of what they do in very restricted conditions in respect of money and working conditions.

My conversation with the previous Minister, Deputy Heather Humphreys, on her last outing with responsibility for this area in the Dáil Chamber is what set the platform for this discussion today. My concern is that Creative Ireland is becoming an alternative agency for the funding of the arts instead of the funding being directed through the Arts Council, with an arms length approach that is independent of the Government. I am concerned that our Arts Council, which is the fundamental funding agency for artists throughout the country, got a total increase of €3 million, whereas €8 million was set aside for Creative Ireland. As I said, I cannot emphasise enough that, to me, to spend €900,000 on advertising is to have a huge proportion of the overall expenditure for Creative Ireland go to the media.

4:55 pm

Photo of Josepha MadiganJosepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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To clarify, the Arts Council receives the majority of my Department's allocation. It got €68 million, whereas Creative Ireland got only €6 million. They are completely different engines. We are not a funding body in the sense that the Arts Council is.

Photo of Niamh SmythNiamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Festivals have been funded in the past.

Photo of Josepha MadiganJosepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy knows that related to grants for specific festivals. It is a very different matter.

Photo of Niamh SmythNiamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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That were directly chosen-----

Photo of Pat GallagherPat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister, without interruption.

Photo of Josepha MadiganJosepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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If I can answer the Deputy's question, we are talking about high quality resource material and interesting articles and interviews, which are all designed to be thought provoking and informative. They are not simply designed to advertise the Department or the programme. They are there to showcase the range of activities and amenities and the research into culture and creativity and to encourage people to get involved. I disagree strongly that artists are not aware of this Creative Ireland programme.

Photo of Niamh SmythNiamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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They are aware of it but they are not benefiting from it.

Photo of Josepha MadiganJosepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The whole point of the engagement is to create awareness of it. I might add that this is together with the money all the local authorities in each different constituency received. The 31 of them have been using the moneys they got to create awareness as well. This all feeds into implementing the Culture 2025 programme, which is what Creative Ireland is all about.