Fiach MacConghail (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the Seanad for this important debate on the nature, challenges and role of commemorations as we begin a decade of centenaries. The Minister is the chairman of the all-party centenary commemoration group and therefore has a powerful role in establishing the vision of how we might approach the complex notion of commemoration and in how we deliver the activities planned. He is also in charge of our national cultural institutions which will be asked to articulate and manifest a decade of centenaries through contemporary arts, exhibitions, concerts, events, theatre productions, music and poetry in which we need to involve all of our citizens.

The first Minister charged with responsibility for culture in the Republic is now its President. President Michael D. Higgins established the vision, roadmap and passion behind the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997. I was proud, while working with a fellow Kerryman when he was Minister with responsibility for the arts, namely, John O'Donoghue, to implement large portions of the Act and the establishment of the legal entities and boards of the National Museum of Ireland and the National Library of Ireland.

When discussing commemorations we need to be aware that memory has its politics. If this decade of centenaries is either too controlled by the State or watered down so much as to avoid dissent or anxiety it will be a missed opportunity. The value of mutual respect, as the Minister eloquently stated in his speech, is the value that should drive commemoration and I applaud his vision for this. Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars was written not as a commemoration of 1916 but as a critique of the failure of the Rising and the promise that was not delivered. Are we prepared as a nation to look at some of our national events and judge ourselves against the values of those participants? The Proclamation promised to guarantee religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens. It also acknowledged differences among citizens. Therefore, any approach we take to marking commemorations should be about the future. How do we value ourselves now as a nation? We are morally, socially and financially bankrupt. How can we use commemoration as an act of renewal and reimagining of our communities and society?

It might be an idea to examine the issue of excluded narratives as the Proclamation is full of them. We should consider how we let down our fellow citizens and our children and have denied equal opportunities to all citizens. With regard to the Easter Rising, Diarmaid Ferriter recently wrote: "Inevitably, there were different meanings ascribed to 1916, and it was presented as 'an idea, an ideal, an illusion and a delusion: all bitterly fought over'. Commemoration also involved the exclusion of alternative narratives."

We need to mine the past, as we have often done, to meet the needs of the present. Our President recently stated: "The anniversaries are an opportunity too to retrieve a sense of peace with our complex identities." The challenge for us is to create a new story, narrative and myth of Irishness and our President is encouraging us to use memory and imagination as a way of renewing our collective sense of what it is to be Irish. In a recent speech given in New York, he stated:

Renewing Ireland and with it our sense of what it means to be Irish is one of the most urgent challenges facing us at present. It is a challenge which encompasses and underpins economic renewal but also which goes beyond it. It is an exercise of empowerment in constructing an ethical relationship with others and it can be emancipatory in freeing us from models of economy and society which are not only failing but which are disastrous in their social consequences.

What an excellent vision for us to inform our future planning of the commemorations.

The role of the contemporary artist should also be central to the discourse and debate on how we respond to commemorations. Artists were central to the discourse and debate leading up to the events of 1913 to 1921. They offered diverging and diverse perspectives. Artists should be commissioned and encouraged to engage in reflecting this decade of centenaries.

Yesterday in the Dáil, the Minister acknowledged artistic and curatorial autonomy is a major consideration for him and I support this. To achieve it, every cultural organisation needs not only legal independence but also moral and political independence. I know this to be true as the director of the national theatre. The Minister stated autonomy is achieved by having an independent board and chair; an independent director appointed and answerable to the board; and governance and procedures which guarantee transparency and help fundraise. The Minister supports Government proposals for the mergers, amalgamations and dissolutions but we want to support him in not letting this happen. While we are all agreed on the need for cost cutting and shared services, I would urge the Minister to try to have some of these policies revoked.

Culture Ireland, which has worked well since its establishment, had an independent board and chief executive officer. While the Department was aware that the CEO's contract was to expire in May, it made no plans for putting in place a successor. It has now advertised the position internally but there is no independent board to interview the candidate. Will the Minister confirm if there is an independent arts expert on the interview panel or if any member of the cultural board will interview the future director of Culture Ireland? Will he also confirm whether he intends to amend any part of the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997 as introduced by former Deputy Michael D. Higgins, now the President of Ireland? The removal of boards will not save money. These boards guarantee the artistic and creative autonomy which the Minister desires, as stated so eloquently by him yesterday in the Dáil.

The Crawford Gallery, National Gallery and the Irish Museum of Modern Art have put an excellent idea in terms of shared services to the Minister, which I support. I urge him to allow them retain their dignity and independence by retaining these boards. My final question to the Minister, whom I thank for sharing his thoughts with us, is whether he can confirm when the vacant positions of the director of the National Archive and director of the National Museum will be advertised. The uncertainty created in this regard does not bode well for the delivery of a programme of commemoration for our citizens.

I congratulate the Minister on his achievements thus far but I urge him to take a leading role in promoting the values of our fractured and diverse narratives and to include all of our citizens and cultural institutions in that process.