John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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42. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the current funding being provided for the arts in 2017; the amount that will be allocated by the agencies or organisations under the remit of her Department; the amount being allocated to arts projects directly by her Department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37395/16]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Most of my Department's arts and culture budget is allocated to the agencies under its remit. Details of expenditure allocations made available by my Department, to bodies and State agencies under its remit, are published each year in the Revised Estimates Volume (REV) and the Appropriation Account and these are published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform at www.per.ie and on the website of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General at www.audgen.gov.ie.

The Revised Estimates Volume for 2017 will be published in the coming weeks.

Within these allocations, the Arts Council is the primary State agency for funding the arts. In this regard, I secured significant additional funding for the Arts Council as part of Budget 2017. This will see an increase in the Arts Council allocation of €5m or 8%. Details of the Council's funding decisions can be found on its website at the following link www.artscouncil.ie/Who_we_funded/.

Direct funding from my Department for arts primarily relates to capital funding for individual projects, as well as the promotion of Irish arts and culture abroad through Culture Ireland. A small number of summer schools and similar events receive funding from my Department. Details of these are on my Department’s website at www.ahg.gov.ie.

As I previously outlined, Budget 2017 will include:

-an additional €5 million for the Arts Council, an 8% increase in its annual budget;

- increased funding for all of the National Cultural Institutions;

- an increase of €2 million for the Irish Film Board and €1 million for Culture Ireland;

-an additional €1 million to the Heritage Council;and

-funding of €5m for the implementation of a Culture 2025/Ireland 2016 Legacy Programme, which will allow me to build on the positive legacy of the Ireland 2016 commemorations. I will be announcing details of this new initiative shortly.

All of this represents real and substantial funding increases across the arts and cultural area and has been welcomed across the sector. It also re-affirms the commitment of this Government to progressively increase funding for the arts as the economy improves, as set out in the Programme for a Partnership Government.