Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

406. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if her Department has been involved in any court proceedings that involved non disclosure agreements in the past five years; and if so, if the specific court ruling prevented knowledge of the court proceeding being known and knowledge of the participants to the court proceeding from being made known for each of these agreements. [39861/16]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs was established under that title on 7 July 2016. It has responsibility for all the matters that previously came within the remit of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, which was itself established on 2 June 2011 and, in addition, is also responsible for certain functions transferred from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and from the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

No non-disclosure agreements have been entered into with any organisation due to court action since the establishment of the Department in 2011.

For completeness, I wish to advise as set out in my reply to question number 481 of 29 November 2016, that there is a confidential legal agreement in place with Meath Partnership relating to the delivery of the Leader Programme 2007-2013, which was entered into by the then Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in 2015. This agreement is not related to any actual or prospective court proceedings. Responsibility for the LEADER programme was transferred to my Department earlier this year.