Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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68. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will set out the plan to achieve the commitment of the previous government to double investment in arts and culture by 2025. [32199/22]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Culture 2025 (accessible via this link www.gov.ie/en/publication/62616d-culture-2025/), sets the direction for Government policy across the cultural sector, including the arts, the Irish language and the creative, cultural heritage and audio-visual sectors.  This Framework Policy sets out values and high-level principles to inform public policy and planning in the decade ahead.  The aims of Culture 2025 are already being progressed through current Government initiatives including the Creative Ireland Programme, the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language, Global Ireland 2025 and the Audio-visual Action Plan.  Government Departments through their programmes, including Creative Ireland and Culture Ireland and public bodies - including the Arts Council, Screen Ireland, Cultural Institutions, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and local authorities – provide significant support to the sector in Ireland through bursaries, awards, grants, residencies and commissions.

Some €371.4 million will be allocated to the arts and culture sector this year including record levels of funding for the Arts Council and Screen Ireland in recent Budgets, comfortably more than double the equivalent figure for 2017.  The Arts Council maintained the record €130 million funding allocated in 2021, double the level of funding in 2017, allowing it to continue to protect the jobs and livelihoods of artists and assist arts organisations through financial difficulties and empowering it to play a strong role in supporting artists and arts organisations to flourish in the years ahead.

The record allocation of €130m to the Council the 2022 Budget compares with an allocation of €65m in 2017.  The table below shows the allocations in each of the years.