Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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918. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if local authority spending on arts is counted as discretionary or not. [28257/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I understand from my colleague the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, that the elected members of each local authority have direct responsibility in law for all reserved functions of the authority, which includes adopting the annual budget and the allocations thereunder, and my Department has no role in this regard. It should be noted, however, that local authorities also receive specific allocations from Government Departments for specific purposes to which the funding must be applied. For example, the funding that my Department provides local authorities for the Creative Ireland Programmemust be applied for those purposes as set out in the conditions attaching to that funding.