Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail)

The Arts Council has no publicly agreed evaluation criteria and that is a problem that needs to be addressed, which the Bill does. There is, at present, no democratic accountability to the Minister and the Bill seeks to establish this.

The Arts Council has been accused of being unresponsive to communication within the sector and the Bill aims to deal with that. The kind of ethos that has evolved within the council will come to an end with the passing of the Bill and this is welcome to many within the arts world. In light of the culture that developed, people within certain areas of the arts were not in a position to speak out because they were concerned about the lack of funding that might result at a later stage. The bias that was mentioned was certainly there. Senator Ó Murchú spoke of a kind of apartheid. That is more than a perception, it is a fact.

I welcome the recognition of this by the Government and its predecessor, which has resulted in the introduction of this Bill. The Bill seeks to address problem to which I refer and put in place a council that is more accountable to the Government. Senator Ulick Burke will be afforded the opportunity to attack the Minister if anything goes wrong in the future. He already enjoys doing so on regular occasions, so we are making it easier for him to fulfil his Opposition duties.