Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I warmly welcome the Minister to the House. Sitting here listening to the debate, I thought of the Churchill quote about never letting a good crisis go to waste. I hope that from tonight we will see increased funding and support for the arts. I have certainly been energised by the Minister's comments about the Culture 2025 strategy. With my background in children and youth work, I know we are now on our second major national children's strategy, which brings everybody together and energises people. I hope the strategy even does a bit of that for arts and cultural communities. The consultation and engagement suggested by the Minister is a really good way forward.

I support the comments of my colleagues, Senators O'Donnell and Mac Conghail, although I will not reiterate them at this time. It is very important to protect the "arm's length principle" and the figures presented by Senator Mac Conghail on funding are startling. We need to restore that funding. I also testify to the importance of arts in youth work, education, non-formal and formal learning settings.

I should focus on the cultural heritage element. Genealogy is a hobby of mine and I have seen the richness of our National Archives and our National Library of Ireland first-hand. When I saw the figures 18 months ago, I saw that there are 47 staff in those bodies, with 14 archivists. In Scotland there are 160 staff and Denmark has 261 staff, with 88 archivists. In Ireland we pride ourselves on our cultural identity, and if we are really serious, we must invest in these treasures and the richness of resources we have. I fully support the Minister in her work and I hope we can work together. I thank her for coming before us tonight.