Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the extent to which adequate funding remains available to his Department for the promotion or support of community based arts or cultural groups involved in staging various performances at local level on a county basis; the degree to which he has been able to respond positively to such requests in the past 12 months; his expectations for the future in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42339/12]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number and extent of applications for grant aid directly or indirectly received by his Department and or bodies or agencies under his remit in respect of promotion of the arts or related activity in each of the past two years to date; the degree and extent to which he has been able to respond positively to such requests; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42340/12]

Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 136 and 137 together.

The Government's policy on the arts is to promote and strengthen the arts in all its forms, to increase access to and participation in the arts, and to make the arts an integral and valued part of our national life. I am continuing to work towards this goal with my Department and the agencies within its remit, and I remain committed to securing the best possible level of funding for the arts sector. The Government's priorities for the arts are set out in the Programme for Government and are further elaborated upon in my Department's Statement of Strategy ().

As the Deputy is aware, primary responsibility for funding and promotion of the arts rests with the Arts Council. The Council is independent in its decision-making process, including the mechanisms and methods for such grant aid. Details of the Council's programmes and criteria for applications for same are available on the Council's website at www.artscouncil.ie, as well as the decision-making panel and statistics on applications. The Council's 2012 allocation of €63.241 million will allow it to maximise its continuing support for its clients in the arts. Details of successful applications in respect of the years 2009 and 2010 are available in the Council's Annual reports for those years, which are also available online.

The Deputy will be aware that primary responsibility for promotion of and funding of Irish arts abroad rests with Culture Ireland. Full details of applications funded by Culture Ireland are outlined on the Culture Ireland website at .

As the Deputy is aware, I wrote to him in recent months setting out details of all arts bodies/groups that received funding from my Department since its establishment in June 2011, the amount of the funding provided and the purpose of the funding. I also supplied details of all funding provided by Culture Ireland to organisations from June 2011. In addition, I forwarded details received from the Arts Council of all funding provided by it to arts practitioners, arts groups and venues in 2011 and 2012 to date. I am acutely conscious of the resource constraints on my Department and its associated bodies at this time but will seek to have more recent data collated, if the Deputy so wishes. I would point out, however, that such data remains available on the relevant websites, as referred to above.