Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have had four Commencement matters this morning relating to the portfolios of two Green Party Ministers, neither of whom has appeared. The Minister of State has the difficult task of standing in for them.

If ever there was a matter that should be sung into the record, this is it. However, I will not inflict that on the Seanad this morning. I work with a man named Frank Foley. He is a pivotal member of the Kilmainham Inchicore Musical Society.I have the honour of supporting it next week as it runs "Rock of Ages" in the Inchicore College of Further Education. As the annual outing of the musical society, it involves an incredible number of people from the community. The society has more than 70 members and the local community gets to go to an event being performed locally by people they recognise and family members and friends.

Frank Foley is also the national secretary of the Association of Irish Musical Societies. There are 130 such societies on the island, each of which has over 70 members and engages its community in the same way. In a musical society there is a role for everyone. From the extroverts who can take centre stage and the behind-the-scenes people, everyone can get involved. Yet, since Covid musical societies across Ireland have not been receiving funding from the Department of the arts or the Arts Council. This year, they are branching into secondary schools to try to engage pupils in a mentoring programme. This is very important, especially now that speech and drama is taught until junior certificate. These societies are providing extracurricular music activities under the Department of Education and the Arts Council but they have not received funding. No value is placed on the important art, cultural and community impact that these organisations have. It is incredibly remiss of the Minister not to ensure the Arts Council funds musical societies. Art and culture are found in a multiplicity of ways. We must engage people where they are and in what they are interested, and a musical society is exactly the way to do it.

I live in the Dublin South-Central constituency. Arts facilities have been closed down across the constituency. The Rupert Guinness Theatre, which was available to musical societies, is closed. Diageo has made it available to the community provided Dublin City Council runs it and the Minister funds it but there is no sign of that funding coming through. Yet again, musical societies are being let down. The Tivoli Theatre on Francis Street was knocked down to make way for student and tourist accommodation while the community suffers a deficit as a consequence. There seems to be no intent to support the arts at the community level either in my constituency or across the country. How many rural communities benefit from local musical societies?

I hope there is good news in the Minister of State's answer or that we have missed something somewhere in the budget. I have trawled through it and cannot see anything that would be dedicated to this crucial community-based activity that is rich in culture, in community engagement and in bringing people together in their area and in something in which they have ownership, participation and involvement.