Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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208. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht when she will publish the promised plan for the arts; her plans to publish the plan as a draft and seek further consultation; the areas the plan will cover; if estimated costings for implementation will be included; if there will be a commitment by the Government to fund the various elements of the plan; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17895/16]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Significant progress has been made in drafting the first National Cultural Policy - Culture 2025. This followed a major public consultation process in 2015, including a national cultural workshop held in October at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Work by my Department, the expert steering group and a wider expert committee continued on the document in early 2016 and is currently on-going. This expert committee has broad representation across arts and cultural interests.

The Programme for a Partnership Government commits to the publication of Culture 2025as a priority. As I have stated previously, this first such policy will be a living document and will form the basis of an on-going dialogue with all who are interested in cultural policy. My Department is continuing to consider inputs on the draft document from the Steering and Expert Groups which I established and I expect to forward a draft for consideration to the relevant Oireachtas Committee shortly.

It should be noted that this will not be a costed plan for the Arts but a much wider framework policy to guide future Government action across the cultural sector, and will be followed by more detail actions for implementation.