Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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236. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the degree to which she supports the arts through the Arts Council or directly through local community groups; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45789/19]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Total funding for the arts and culture sector in 2020 will increase by over 2% from €189m to almost €193m.

Primary support for the Arts is delivered through the Arts Council. Funding for the Arts Council has increased in recent years and will reach €80 million in 2020. This is an increase of €5m or 6.7% over 2019. The Arts Council, which is independent in its funding decisions under the Arts Act 2003, operates within a published 10 year strategic framework entitled Making Great Art Work. This strategy prioritises support for artists throughout their careers, by the involvement of many agencies in cultural provision, by the impact of the arts on the creative economy, and by the depth and breadth of people's engagement with the arts.

The cumulative impact of these funding increases is further testament to the commitment to double Government spending in the sector. In this context, I am already delivering additional supports to the arts and culture sector, building on the €1.2 billion earmarked for culture, heritage and the Irish language under Project Ireland 2040, thus leading to increased activity and employment across all sectors under the remit of my Department.

The Creative Ireland Programme is a five-year all-of-government, culture-based initiative, led by my Department, that emphasises the importance of human creativity for individual, community and societal wellbeing. The vision of the Creative Ireland Programme is to position creativity at the heart of public policy, to enable, encourage and enhance collaboration and innovation, and to create opportunities for all citizens to engage with all forms of creative activity.

In encouraging new ways and means to explore, express and engage with our natural creativity, the Creative Ireland Programme aims to give autonomy to partners (such as local authorities, community groups and schools) to decide on the creative activities that speak to their strengths, preferences and local traditions.

Under Pillars 1 and 2 of the Programme, a range of creative activities and pursuits are supported - whether that be in what can be considered traditional artforms (such as drama, music of the visual arts), through embracing new and innovate forms of creativity (such as coding) or through new ways to engage with and explore our traditional and heritage craft activities.

The main source of funding for local community events and activities under the Creative Ireland Programme is Pillar 2 - 'Enabling Creativity in Every Community'.In 2019, total funding of €3m has been allocated to all local authorities to enable them to support an extensive programme of activities, events and initiatives in each county. Each local authority has established a Creative Ireland Co-ordinator and a local Culture Team to manage and allocate this funding in accordance with local needs and in line with their own, individual 5-year Culture and Creativity Strategy. The projects funded cover a broad range of topics including archaeology, architecture, biodiversity, crafts, heritage, drama, dance, literature, music, storytelling and the visual arts.

In addition to this core funding, the Creative Ireland Programme has also allocated €15,000 to each local authority outside of Dublin and €75,000 each to the four local authorities in Dublin to develop a special programme of events for Cruinniú na nÓg – the national day of creativity for children and young people. Cruinniú na nÓg took place on 15th June 2019 and included a range of arts based activities for all ages. Already this year, nearly 1,400 projects have been supported by the Creative Ireland Programme.

In July of this year, I announced the completion of a review of the Percent for Art scheme. The outcome of this review led to changes to the scheme’s bands and limits which will make significantly increased funding available to the creative community. The new limits and bands will apply from 1st January 2020 and details may be seen on my Department’s website.

I will shortly be re-establishing an inter-agency group to improve information gathering and collation and sharing of best practice on Percent for Art schemes. This group will also link in with the Arts Council and seek to enhance the Council’s existing advisory role in relation to the Scheme.

I have recently announced a new €4.7m capital investment scheme for arts and culture centres across the country. Applications are now being invited for the Cultural Capital Scheme which will focus on enhancing the existing stock of arts and culture centres that operate as not-for-profit organisations. This new scheme places an emphasis on the reduction of carbon footprints to dovetail with the Government’s action on climate change. Projects providing additional capacity for artists and artistic production particularly in arts centres will also be favoured. The Scheme builds on the success of the Arts and Culture Capital Scheme 2016-2018 which saw grants allocated to 134 organisations in 26 counties to refurbish and enhance their facilities. This funding is provided from a €40m capital investment allocation for local arts and culture infrastructure contained in Project Ireland 2040 “Investing in our Culture, Language & Heritage 2018-2027'.

This scheme has been informed by the recently published strategic by the Arts Council & the County and City Management Association (CCMA) as well as the Arts Council's published which sets out its funding criteria for arts centres from 2020 onwards.

Applications are being invited under three separate Streams as follows.

Stream Awill offer grants up to €50,000 for small enhancement/expansion/ refurbishment projects which may involve construction works to arts and culture facilities and/or upgrading of equipment.

Stream B will offer grants from €50,000 up to €300,000 for larger enhancement /expansion/ refurbishment projects involving construction works to arts and culture facilities.

Stream Cwill be a separate scheme aimed at the upgrading of visual artists’ workspaces. Applications for this Stream will be invited separately by Visual Artists Ireland.

All information on the Cultural Capital Scheme 2019 – 2022 is available on my Department’s website.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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237. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the degree to which she continues to support the arts through musical or dramatic societies nationally in 2019 with specific reference to County Kildare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45790/19]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Support for the arts is a key focus of the supports provided by my Department and its agencies. I will outline some key initiatives of relevance to 2019 in this reply.

The Creative Ireland Programme is a culture-based programme led by my Department designed to promote individual, community and national wellbeing. Its core proposition is that participation in cultural activity drives personal and collective creativity, with significant implications for individual and societal wellbeing and achievement.

Under Pillar 2 - 'Enabling Creativity in Every Community' of the Programme, in 2019, my Department allocated a sum of €2m and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government allocated a sum of €1m to all 31 local authorities including Kildare County Council (€96,000 each approximately) to enable them support an extensive programme of activities, events and initiatives in each county.

The types of projects advanced by individual Local Authority Culture and Creativity Teams and supported by the Programme include arts projects, grant schemes, concerts, conferences, exhibitions, festivals, outreach projects, publications, research programmes, and workshops among other activities. They cover topics such as dance, film, music, poetry, storytelling, theatre and the visual arts. Further information is available on .

As well as this core support for local Creative Ireland programmes, each local authority is also provided with additional funding to support activities on Cruinniú na nÓg – the national day of creativity for children and young people which takes place in June. This year each local authority including Kildare County Council was provided with €15,000 (and in the case of each of the four Dublin local authorities, a sum of €75,000 reflecting their larger populations) to activate Cruinniú na nÓg in their respective administrative areas.

Cumulatively, the above funding streams supported over 1,200 projects nationally in 2018 and it is expected they will fund a similar amount of projects in 2019. However since processing of 2019 events is ongoing, such information will not be fully available to my Department until the end of 2019 whereupon it will be made publicly available on .

Also under the Creative Ireland Programme, the 2017 Creative Youth Plan commits to specific actions to increase and enhance access to a range of creative and cultural activities and practices for young people, including drama and music. As part of this commitment, my colleague the Minister for Education and Skills has in 2019 increased funding to Music Generation aimed at a national roll-out of the programme. Earlier this year, Kerry, Tipperary, Kildare, Meath and Longford were announced as the next five counties to join the Music Generation programme. Each of these counties will receive funding to create access to affordable performance music education for children and young people in their communities.

In addition, Action 8 of the Creative Youth Plan commits to “measures will be developed to expand participation in drama/theatre outside of school, primarily by expansion of youth theatre”, and recognises the importance of youth theatre in supporting and developing young people’s mental wellbeing, critical and active citizenship, imaginations, and creative thinking. Youth Theatre Ireland (YTI) is the national development organisation for youth theatre, supporting a network of youth theatres who deliver year-round programmes of drama workshops and performance opportunities to young people aged 12-21. Indeed, I note that YTI currently list five such theatres in County Kildare.

The YTI project, supported by the Creative Ireland Programme, seeks to achieve the following:

- Establish a range of new local partnerships and build key relationships to expand YTI in new areas. The YTI Development Officer will identify potential leaders and participants.

- Provide a structured training programme (including accredited training in youth drama facilitation practice) to support the development of quality youth theatre practice.

- Provide seed-funding to new youth theatre groups as well as ‘taster’ workshops for young people in local youth service and other appropriate settings.

- The pilot project seeks to support the establishment of 3 new youth theatre groups (in target counties where no YTI-affiliated group currently exists).

Also under Action 9 of the 2017 Creative Youth Plan there is a commitment to “a strategy to develop and extend choral singing will be developed. The Creative Ireland Programme will work with key partners to develop a programme aimed at encouraging creative and sustainable engagement with singing and choral music for young people”. The Creative Ireland Programme has partnered with Sing Ireland whose mission is to develop and support all forms of group singing in Ireland, by providing quality experiences through activities and by supporting the work of their members and the wider choral sector to progress this action. I note that Sign Ireland has ten membership organisations listed within County Kildare.

Phase 1 of the project was undertaken in 2018, which sought to consult and build the case for YouthSing Ireland – this included commissioning of a piece of research now available in the library section of . YouthSing Ireland, supported by the Creative Ireland Programme, seeks to achieve the following:

- Deliver enhanced Continuous Professional Development (CPD) offering to Primary and early secondary school education;

- The development of new resource material in Irish or of traditional Irish origin and an on-line resource for teachers (this element will be progressed in tandem with the Gaeltacht division of the Department of Culture, Heritage & Gaeltacht); and

- Develop a Sing Space which will bring young people and children, teachers and musicians together from the formal and non-formal settings to work collaboratively in a creative space locally.

The Arts Council which is funded by my Department also has a number of schemes and initiatives around the support of music and drama. Details of these can be accessed on its website at the following link: . Funding for the Arts Council has increased in recent years and now stands at €75 million in 2019, an increase of €6.8m or 10% over 2018. Much of this is invested by the Council through its Strategic Funding programme which includes grants to key arts organisations across the country. Additional funding is invested in projects and programmes, including Arts Grant Funding, Project Awards, Open Call, and grants for hundreds of productions, touring and festivals nationwide and details can be viewed on the Arts Council's website on its funding webpages.

I also announced in the context of Budget 2020 that funding of €250,000 for the amateur theatre sector across Ireland will be made available next year. Details of this funding arrangement will be announced shortly.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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238. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the degree to which she encourages or promotes the arts through schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45791/19]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Creative Ireland Programme is a 5-year initiative which places creativity at the centre of public policy. The Programme is a high-level, ambitious, all-of-government initiative to mainstream creativity in the life of the nation. The core proposition is that participation in cultural and creative activity promotes individual, community and national wellbeing.

The programme seeks to support each citizen – whether individually or collectively, in our personal lives or in our institutions – to realise our full creative potential, by encouraging, facilitating and supporting collaboration in order to cultivate a diverse, accessible & creative cultural ecosystem that sustains wellbeing for all.

Under the Creative Ireland Programme, I launched a Creative Youth Plan with the Minister for Education and Skills and the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs in December 2017. This aims to give every child practical access to tuition, experience and participation in art, music, drama and coding by 2022. This Plan works across:

- Schools: Enhancing arts and creativity initiatives in schools and early years settings.

- Teacher CPD: Increasing and enhancing teacher continuing professional development opportunities across primary, post-primary and early years settings.

- Out-of-School: Improving cross-sectoral collaboration to support creativity for children and young people in the community.

My Department, through the Creative Youth Plan of the Creative Ireland Programme, and in collaboration with the Departments of Education and Skills, and Children and Youth Affairs as well as the Arts Council has invested heavily in the promotion of arts in schools and encouraging schools to participate in arts-based activities. The principal initiatives within the formal/school setting are Creative Schools and Creative Clusters and further information on these programmes is included below. A number of other pilots and initiatives have been developed and/or supported to help deliver the Creative Youth Plan and some further information on a selection of individual initiatives is also outlined below.

1.The Creative Schoolspilot is one of the flagship projects of the Creative Youth Plan, which seeks to enable the creative potential of every child and young person. Creative Schools aims to understand, develop and celebrate the arts and creativity as a core aspect of school life. It strives to foster children and young people’s creativity, potential and participation in the arts as an integral part of their education. The initiative recognises that the arts are a powerful means through which children and young people can explore communication and collaboration, stimulate their imaginations to be inventive, and harness their boundless curiosity.

1.Schools selected to participate in the programme do so on a two-year cycle - the first to support them in developing a feasible creative plan for the school, and the second to enable them to implement this plan. Each participating school is provided with access to a Creative Associate, who are essential in embedding inspirational and sustainable creative practices in teaching and learning. Creative Associates are a mixture of practising artists and teachers with an understanding of creativity and its potential to transform the lives of children and young people. In addition, each school is allocated an annual grant of €2,000 to implement their plans.

1. Creative Clustersare groups of 2-5 schools, within an education centre, coming together to work on a Creative Project. A facilitator provided by the Education Centre will help them formulate the plan and €2,500 is provided to each cluster to put this plan into action. Projects include coding, drama, Green Forest and Wellbeing.

1.Continuing Professional Development(CPD) for teachers and for artists working in partnership with teachers is crucial to the long-term success and sustainability of the overall Creative Youth Plan. In order to achieve the long-term objective of cultural and creative education, it’s necessary to build a critical mass of education and arts professionals who are versed in the theoretical frameworks of arts and creativity education, and equipped with the skills and techniques for delivering programmes. CPD programmes continue to be rolled out across Early Years, Primary and Post-Primary settings.

1. National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals(NAPD) – a representative body for Principals and Deputy Principals – operates the Creative Engagement programme in Post Primary settings.Under the programme, grants up to €2,000 are awarded to schools for art education under clearly set criteria and undertaken on a jointly funded basis with the school involved. The projects involved allow art practitioners to work with students in schools to allow students to produce work in visual art, music, theatre, dance, film and poetry. This programme strives to encourage creativity and initiative, and complements curricular learning in the arts, heritage and culture. NAPD envisions an education system energised through the arts and where creativity is a core activity in the post primary curriculum.

1. Music Generationis Ireland’s National Music Education Programme that aims to transform the lives of children and young people through access to high quality performance music education in their locality. Initiated by Music Network, Music Generation has been co-funded by U2, The Ireland Funds, the Department of Education and Skills and Local Music Education Partnerships. The national roll-out of Music Generation is one of the actions being implemented in the Creative Youth Programme.