Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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56. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht her plans to double the arts budget in order to realise the potential of the film and theatre industry in view of the Taoiseach's promise regarding same. [47918/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Taoiseach has said that he will double the overall budget of arts, culture and sport over the next seven years. I am certain that we can meet this target by implementing sustainable increases on an incremental basis between now and 2025 – a process we initiated in Budget 2018, in spite of it being a tight year across the board.

In Budget 2018, I announced a funding package of over €300 million in 2018 towards the development of our cultural and creative heritage, an increase in funding to my Department of €13 million, comprising €9 million in current expenditure and €4 million in capital expenditure. This includes an €8.5 million boost in funding for arts and culture. I also secured an additional €90 million in capital funding between 2018 and 2021 for my Department which will accelerate investment across the culture, heritage and Gaeltacht sectors.

As part of 8.5m in additional funding, the Arts Council will receive an additional €3 million to enhance its support to artists and arts organisations of all sizes throughout the country. The total Arts Council allocation of €68.2 million in 2018 represents 23% of total allocation to all areas of my Department and is over 49% of all current expenditure by the Culture Division of my Department. I also allocated an additional €1.55m to the Irish Film Board equivalent to a 9.3% increase.

As the economy continues to improve over the coming years the Government's ambition is to allocate more resources to arts and culture and to continue to build on the foundations that I have put in place in Budget 2018.