Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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683. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the Creative Ireland culture and creativity plans for each local authority; the cost of each culture and creativity item in each of the culture and creativity plans, by county and city councils, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3107/18]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Pillar 2 of the Creative Ireland Programme - Enabling Creativity in every Community is a key element of the Programme and the 31 Local Authorities are important partners. In 2017, my Department allocated €1 million to local authorities from the Creative Ireland budget to enable them to develop their Culture and Creativity Action Plans and an associated programme of events and initiatives in each county. This was bolstered by an additional €1 million from the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. This meant that each local authority received approximately €64,000 each to implement their Culture and Creativity Plans for 2017.

In total, the plans listed over 750 local cultural projects, events and initiatives taking place nationwide in 2017 of which approximately 250 were funded through the enabling budget provided under the Creative Ireland Programme.

A key principle underpinning the Creative Ireland Programme is community empowerment and therefore each local authority decided themselves what events/projects they wished to include in their respective plans. It is therefore not possible to provide an exact breakdown of costs for each activity for every local authority.  However, this information -in accordance with normal departmental monitoring procedures and in line with the reporting requirements specific to this initiative - will be submitted by each local authority over the coming weeks.

A breakdown of the total allocation to the local authorities in tabular form is contained in the Creative Ireland Programme End Year Report 2017 which is available on the Creative Ireland website of my Department at . All 31 local plans can be accessed at .

It should be noted that the allocation from my Department to each local authority will be doubled to €2 million for 2018 to enable them commence the implementation of their long-term Culture and Creative Strategies due to be launched early next year. As in 2017, this will be divided equally among each of the 31 Local Authorities.