Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move:

“That Seanad Éireann:-recognises the critical role of culture and the arts in Irish society – enriching individual lives, developing talent, offering collaborative opportunity and the opportunity to express common values and community identity through works that commemorate events of significant national importance;
-recognises that Ireland has a vivid cultural and artistic wealth, past and present;
-acknowledges the Irish writers, musicians and artists who continue to forge strong links of friendship and strong cultural collaborations across the globe;
-commends the Government for supporting and building Yeats2015, a unique cultural event that for the first time in Ireland celebrates the life, work, legacy and inspiration of one of our great writers – and a former senator – William Butler Yeats who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923;
-commends the participation of so many Government departments, Government agencies, academic institutions, cultural institutions, cultural organisations and individuals in the development and support of Yeats2015;
-encourages the Government to continue to build the links between schools and cultural institutions;
-encourages the Government to continue to build the Arts in Education Charter; andencourages the Government to prioritise investment in the arts and culture in Ireland and to move towards articulating ‘a new language of cultural value’.”

I thank the Minister for being here. It is always an important moment when we seek to discuss our culture, because our culture is all about ourselves at work, at play, in protest and at peace. Since men and women have sought shelter, they have sought to make their mark, to be remembered, to express their views, thoughts, concerns, worries and joys. Man first put marks on cave walls 40,000 years ago. They have stood the test of time and are proof that before great stock exchanges or Googles, or even coins or the capacity to buy and sell, existed, there were marks on walls to express ourselves, to be the very basis of our cultural life.
In Ireland, we wear our culture rather on our sleeve. We are emotional. At times we are sentimental. We love to play music, to sing - I know that is in the Minister's deep heart's core - to talk, and to tell stories. It is part of who we are and these characteristics define us as Irish in the world. Celebrating our culture in its many forms is a hugely responsible task because it is fundamental to ourselves. Being the custodian of our cultural progress is also a great responsibility for any Minister, for any Government and for all of us. Over the lifetime of this State, which has been short, we are lucky to have put in place such great cultural institutions as the National Library, the National Gallery, the National Museum, the National Archives, the National Concert Hall and the Abbey Theatre. They have stood the test of time. They show that we understood from the start that having great national institutions is important to us.
From there, much more has blossomed - art galleries across the country, musical societies, opera companies, dance, great writings, craft work, poetry and literature. What an extraordinarily rich country this is when it comes to our capacity to express ourselves and who we are. We have arts officers working in every county, many arts centres, lots of stages, local drama groups, choral groups and reading groups. The artistic expression of our culture is alive and well the length and breadth of Ireland, in young and old and in Irish and new Irish communities alike. Senator Ó Murchú, as president of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, can take his share of pride and we should salute him for the effort he has made over many years to bring alive in a new way our great tradition of Irish music.
I am very proud to be associated with next year's unique cultural celebration of all this and more, Yeats 2015. I am honoured to be the chair of what will be a year-long national and international celebration of Ireland, of our contemporary cultural wealth and our great cultural heritage, through the prism of arguably one of Ireland's finest writers and poets, William Butler Yeats, whose 150th birthday we celebrate next year as part of the decade of commemoration. I thank the Minister for being with us to launch Yeats 2015 last week, along with the Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Ó Ríordáin. I want to publicly thank her predecessor, the former Minister of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Jimmy Deenihan, for supporting the project when it was in its infancy and, like the Minister, seeing the benefit of celebrating Yeats and the crucial role he played in Irish history as well as Irish literature, and in the formation of Ireland's cultural identity at the turn of the 20th century, when so much was in flux and so much was at stake. I also thank the steering group which has worked with me during the past 12 months to help deliver what promises to be an exciting and varied programme across the country and across the world.
The vision we set down is to celebrate and commemorate the life, work, influence and achievements of William Butler Yeats through an engaging, celebratory and cultural programme. It will showcase Ireland as a dynamic, inspiring and creative place. It is not simply about a commemoration, it is much more than that. It is also about celebrating, and about being inspired by what inspired him. It has been difficult at times, because our ambition far exceeded our pocket, but it has not stopped us, I hope, believing in the value of celebrating Yeats and our culture.
Next year should provide a genuine opportunity for the nation to pause and re-evaluate our own cultural milieu - our relationship with ourselves, so to speak. It comes before another great year, 2016, when we commemorate and remember the 1916 Rising. Although not stage-managed by Yeats himself, who was just lucky to have been born 150 years ago, next year's anniversary gives us an appropriate opportunity to pause, but to do it through our cultural means, rather than perhaps through a more political prism. There will be a chance, I hope, to celebrate, to have fun, to see some great paintings, and hear good music and beautiful poetry, but it will be more than that.
At its heart, Yeats 2015 proposes to be inclusive. For far too long, Yeats was placed on a great, high pedestal - hard to reach and often out of touch. On Yeats's Day, which we launched in 2012, we have always made a point of including young children, older people, students excluded from school, sport and food. Wherever we can find a way to include people, we have sought it. We have aimed to show that this great writer, like all great writers, is not above us. Yeats never set out to be above us. He battled all the time to draw people into the debate about Irishness and our great cultural heritage, how to articulate a pride in that heritage and Irishness, and how it was rooted in our fables and our great mythology.
Next year also offers that opportunity, which is important as we embrace new communities into Ireland and recognise and acknowledge their cultural contribution. Scholars and academics have pored over his every word and writings. They have, perhaps, unintentionally created a situation where people who love just a small amount of his poetry may feel embarrassed to say they love "The Lake Isle of Inishfree" or "The Cat and the Moon". It is not about knowing all of his work. It is about appreciating and loving what one does know and saying "Next year, I'm going to enjoy the bit that I do know." In that way, everybody - from young to old and from scholar to the child reading their first poem - can enjoy it.
There is also the opportunity to reconnect with the identity of the nation at a time when we have endured much and when there is much to look forward to. The programme of events next year - poetry, music, dance, song, readings and performance, held underground, in schools, in halls, in libraries and on boats - is there for everyone to enjoy. We call on everyone to get involved, whether they want to organise something themselves to celebrate or to come and share one of the celebrations we are organising, and to see it as a year for all of us to enjoy.
Our great young people are so open to their artistic and creative instincts. They are the treasure of our future and they need to be nourished and nurtured. I welcome the arts in education initiative operated between the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the Department of Education and Skills under its director, Dr. Katie Sweeney. There are genuine plans to change the landscape for arts in education through many routes: Music Generation, the mapping exercise, which will single out and show where the practice is both good and poor and needs to be improved, the launch of the arts rich schools programme, which will encourage all schools to build arts into their school day, and an online portal that is currently in development.

In a way, these are the areas where the real changes will occur - with young children - and help to stop the arts from being the preserve, possibly, of the wealthy and the middle class, as has been the tradition.

Research carried out in the United Kingdom and elsewhere demonstrates the tangible benefits of expanding the arts. Up to now the lack of evidence has been one of the great difficulties of investing. The arts have always been the poor relation. Indeed, the only way to change this is to invest at the core level and in schools. The research showed that being involved in the arts can improve the cognitive abilities of children. There are links between the arts and better health. Students from low-income families who take part in arts activities are three times more likely to get a degree than students from low-income families who do not take part. Drama and library activity improves attainment in literacy. There are positive impacts for people with dementia and Parkinson's disease if they are involved in the arts. Then, of course, there are economic benefits in attracting visitors and revitalising places through artistic and cultural activity. The Arts Council in the United Kingdom has identified that this investment has the capacity, in a way, to create the right lens through which the transforming ghost of art that is everywhere, but is often invisible, at last shows up as an identifiable presence.

Before the Chair axes me with his hammer, I will make a final point. I recognise that the Minister has negotiated some additional funding for our institutions and I know she is aware that the state of funding could be described as perilous. Those involved in the institutions work hard. A particular challenge facing the National Library of Ireland, among others, is the fact that it has been unable to recruit staff in recent times. The library is keen to organise a national cultural repository to serve as a storage facility in the future in order that we can treasure the marks on the wall, as it were. However, without funding it will be unable to do that, and much of what is now digitally available will be lost if we do not have a strategy in place.

I would be remiss of me to leave out the heritage sector, which oversees monuments, parks and wildlife and our national reserves. These are part of the extended fabric of our culture. I recognise that there is much to do and it is a great responsibility. I thank the Minister again for supporting Yeats2015.