Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and the opportunity to speak on a wide-ranging motion concerning services in a number of cultural institutions and arts and cultural policy generally. The text has been framed broadly to enable Senators to speak on a range of issues that fall within the Minister's remit. I commend my colleagues, Senators Whelan and Kelly, on tabling the motion on behalf of Labour Party Senators. The Senators will respond to contributions at the conclusion of the debate. I also apologise for the spelling mistake in the title of the National Gallery.

The timing of this debate is good as the Heritage Council held a major Oireachtas briefing event in Buswells Hotel earlier today. I am conscious that many Senators, including me, have spent a good deal of time listening to presentations on the diverse work being carried out under the auspices of the Heritage Council. Previous speakers made - as I will make - the case for increasing funding to the Heritage Council to ensure it is able to plan for the future.Like many other cultural institutions and arts bodies they suffer from an inability to plan for the future on a multi-annual basis. The Heritage Council made a very strong case today for increased funding and for the great benefit to Irish society and to many communities from the work done under its auspices. I spoke to individuals from different organisations, ranging from the Irish Landmark Trust to the Burrenbeo Trust in County Clare. I am familiar with the work of the Burrenbeo Trust through my work in Ballyvaughan where I help to run a law and politics school in the Burren College of Art. I also spoke to people from the Bere Island community group and from Wicklow, dealing with the uplands there, and others about a range of initiatives, including the discovery programme run by the centre for Irish archaeological research, which is doing very important work in digitising some of our immense cultural heritage. Their work is very important in preserving our heritage for future generations. It also has tangible and practical benefits in supporting and facilitating job growth and the development of tourism in communities. It makes the very powerful case that for every euro spent by the Heritage Council the Irish tourism industry generates €4.40 in increased tourism revenue. In terms of practical and intangible benefits the case it makes is very important.

As the Minister said, many of us have an interest in the national cultural policy. I welcome the fact that the Department is working on the draft policy, in line with the programme for Government, to underpin a national cultural policy, culture 2025, the first ever such policy. The Minister spoke about the wide-ranging consultation process due to begin in coming weeks with the Royal Irish Academy involved in holding an initial workshop. Can the Minister give us more information on the timeframe for the development of the policy? How long will the public consultation go on? How widely will the information be disseminated? Will there be invitations to particular institutions and bodies to make submissions or will it include the public? I am conscious that the Minister will not have an opportunity to respond in this debate but I may write to her office.

Senator Mac Conghail spoke about the programme under a previous Government for mergers and amalgamations of national cultural institutions. I commend the Minister for not pursuing that programme at the more developed level, which was very damaging to the institutions and to the arts community in Ireland generally. I have said many times that it was a very ill-advised policy.

In the motion we commend the Government for continuing to support the policy of not imposing admission charges to the institutions. I am glad the Minister has reiterated her own support for that free admissions policy. Senator Eamonn Coghlan put forward the situation very clearly about the broader funding of the arts in terms of the difficult economic situation facing the Government. The Minister said the era of cutbacks is over, which all of us, as citizens engaging with arts and cultural institutions in our daily lives, welcome. We also welcome the detail she gave us on the programme for commemorations. We have spoken several times in this House about that. I have spoken in particular about the need to ensure the military aspect of the commemorations is not over-emphasised at the expense of the social, economic and cultural climate and context in which the Rising took place. RTE and Dublin City Council are to be commended for their Road to the Rising event on Easter Monday, which had enormous appeal. There were tens of thousands of people in Dublin city centre and queues out the door of places such as Liberty Hall to hear talks about the social, economic and cultural context of the Rising. It was a very wide-ranging event and the sort of event we can learn from in developing our commemoration programme.

I commend the Minister for her work and ask her to ensure that funding for the sector increases in future years, that we continue to work to enhance the status of the national cultural institutions and preserve them as important institutions, and that funding is disseminated to local communities under the auspices of bodies such as the Heritage Council. I look forward very much to the roll-out of the national cultural policy.