Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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324. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the estimated cost of removing the €2,550,000 cap for the per cent for art scheme and of adjusting the other caps accordingly; the number of art projects that have been funded each year since the scheme was established; the amount spent each year on the scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18189/19]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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In 1997, a decision by the Government approved the inclusion in budgets for all Exchequer-funded capital construction projects an amount of up to 1% as funding for an art project, subject to an overall cap of €64,000. While my Department has responsibility for the promotion of the Per Cent for Art Scheme, it does not have a budget for it.  My Department, therefore does not provide any funding for the inclusion of art projects in the project costs of other Departments' projects such as roads, schools or hospitals, and it does not collect statistics.

The scheme does not operate on the basis of a specific public art fund from which moneys are drawn to undertake or to commission works of an artistic nature. Rather, under the terms of the Scheme, such works are factored into and funded from the overall budget of each capital project by the public body undertaking it. This is a matter for each project promoter or commissioning body and I, as Minister, have no statutory function in this regard.

Guidelines on the Per Cent for Art Scheme are available on the Public Art website www.publicart.ie. The guidelines set out how project managers are to operate the scheme and provide a common national approach to its implementation. The Public Art website is also a comprehensive Public Art resource, which offers information on the operation of the scheme, as well as much of the output of the scheme. This is continuously updated and includes almost 250 permanent and temporary, public and socially engaged artworks made in Ireland, or of artwork made by Irish artists abroad.  Many of these artworks were produced under the Per Cent for Art Scheme.

I made a statement in relation to the per cent for art scheme at the Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees on Wednesday, 6 March 2019.  I informed the Select Committee of my intention to reform the per cent for art scheme and a proposal in that regard is currently under consideration.  The current review of the scheme  is looking at recommendations towards improvement of the retention and centralisation of collated information on projects under the scheme.