Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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646. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the initiatives in place to scout for local talent in the arts space. [19787/21]

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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647. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the level of talent-spotting engagement that takes place between RTÉ and the Arts Council regarding, for example, actors, screenwriters, comedy writers or playwrights. [19790/21]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 646 and 647 together.

Primary responsibility for the development or advancement of the arts rests with the Arts Council under the Arts Act 2003. The Arts Council is independent in its funding decisions under this Art and operates within a published ten-year strategic framework entitled Making Great Art Work. This describes how the Arts Council will lead the development of the arts in Ireland. The strategy has five priority areas: the artist; public engagement; investment strategy; spatial and demographic planning; and developing capacity.

A key strategic priority of the Arts Council is its commitment to support emerging artists of promise and all artists – creative and interpretive – whose quality of practice merits investment. To achieve this the Council continues to monitor its funding to ensure there is a good balance to ensure proportionate investment is made in the work of independent and emerging artists and groups.

The Arts Council supports artists in Ireland through grant funding, project awards and support to individual artists by way of commissions and bursaries. I was delighted to be in a position last summer to announce the recipients of the Next Generation artists’ awards by the Arts Council which is providing support for emerging artists from all backgrounds and genres with an opportunity to develop their skills and produce new work. The purpose of the Next Generation artists’ award is to support a group of promising artists across all disciplines at an early but pivotal stage in their career. Further details of this initiative can be accessed at the following links

The organisations funded by the Council regularly engage in support of emerging artists and fostering of excellence in local contexts.

Culture Ireland also operates a range of funding programmes to support and promote the presentation of Irish arts internationally, including emerging artists. In addition, in terms of supports from my Department for online cultural content over the past twelve months, funding has been provided through Hot Press specifically targeted at emerging artists.

RTE also routinely offers new and emerging talent opportunities across all of its platforms including television, radio and online. It has also collaborated with the Creative Ireland programme in conjunction with its RTE Supporting the Arts initiative to make a number of short film to highlight a broad range of cultural activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.