Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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411. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht her views on proposals that would mandate all local authorities to publish individual arts plans and cultural strategies and for local authority arts spending to be mandatory and ringfenced on an annual basis; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11704/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Taoiseach and I launched the Creative Ireland Programme/Clár Éire Ildánach 2017 – 2022 on the 8 December 2016 as the Government Legacy Programme for Ireland 2016 and as the main implementation vehicle for the priorities identified in Culture 2025/Éire Ildánach, the draft cultural policy which I published in July 2016.This is a cross-Government initiative to mainstream culture and creativity in the life of the nation and to promote individual, community and national wellbeing.

The second pillar of the Programme – Enabling creativity in every community– will be implemented primarily through our local authorities as they are the primary instruments of local community engagement.

Each local authority has now established a Culture Team bringing together arts officers, librarians, heritage officers, museum curators, archivists and other relevant personnel led by a Director of Services, with a nominated person as 'Creative Ireland Co-ordinator'.

A dedicated budget of €1m from the overall Creative Ireland Programme budget of €5m has been allocated to the local authorities towards the implementation of initiatives under Pillar Two including the aforementioned culture teams, the publication of a Culture and Creativity Plan for each county - reflecting at local level the overall structure and aims of the national programme - and the implementation of Cruinniú na Cásca, a programme of arts activities and events on Easter Monday.

I understand that additional support will also be made available to the local authorities for these initiatives by the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government.

I am confident that these initiatives together with the funding referred to above will go a long way towards enhancing culture and creativity in every community.