Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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414. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht how she will make sure arts funding is used to ensure minority and new Irish voices are heard as part of the cultural output. [19820/16]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Under the Arts Act 2003, primary responsibility for the promotion of the arts at all levels throughout the country is devolved to the Arts Council.

The Arts Council is the main channel of the State's current expenditure on the arts and will receive over €60 million in 2016. The Arts Council’s ten-year strategy Making Great Art Work(2016-2025) set outs how it will lead the development of all aspects of the arts in Ireland over the next decade. Making Great Art Workplaces specific emphasis on the need to plan and provide for children and young people. The five high-level values of the Strategy include a comment to excellence as well as respect for diversity of artistic practice, of public engagement, and of social and cultural traditions. The strategy also commits to working to achieve full implementation of the Arts in Education Charter.

The Programme for a Partnership Government commits to the publication of Culture 2025as a priority. 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.

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. Both the new Arts Council Strategy and the evolving Culture 2025policy provide platforms to deepen engagement across all sectors of our society.