Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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990.To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the total expenditure, both capital and current, allocated to creative schools each year for the past five years; and the number of schools to participate each year. [33520/24]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Creative Schools is a flagship initiative of the Creative Youth Plan, supporting schools to put the arts and creativity at the heart of children’s and young people’s lives. Since 2018, Creative Schools has supported schools over 2 years to develop and implement a bespoke Creative Schools plan. It is led by the Arts Council in partnership with my Department and the Department of Education. Access to the initiative is open to all Department of Education-recognised primary and post-primary schools.

Each school participating in the initiative is provided with a Creative Schools operating grant of €4,000 in total over the two years. Each school is also provided with access to a trained Creative Associate, a school coordinator and voice of the child training.

In 2020 the Arts Council was awarded additional funding from the July Stimulus Package announced by Government, designed to directly support those negatively impacted by Covid-19. The Arts Council agreed to award additional once-off funding to all schools participating of €1,100.

For the 2022 intake, four schools joined the programme that are based in non-mainstream settings, attached to Special Care Units or Children Detention Centres. Similarly in 2023 five Youth Encounter Project Schools (YEPs) joined the Creative Schools programme. Given the particular needs of these settings and the young people within them, they were offered an enhanced package of supports to include greater allocated time with a Creative Associate and an increased grant of €8,000 each over the two years.

In the five rounds from 2019 to 2023, over 820 schools and Youthreach centres have been invited to participate.

Details are available by year on the Arts Council website here:

In 2019, my Department spent a total of €822,000 in current spending for the delivery of Creative Schools. Since 2020, all funding through my Department relating to Creative Schools has been part of the Arts Council’s annual allocation, the management of which is a matter for the Council under the Arts Act 2003.

With regard to current expenditure on the arts, including Creative Schools, the Arts Council funding decisions database gives a listing of its funding decisions since 2008, available here: . Arts Council expenditure on specific programmes they administer, such as Creative Schools, are recorded in the Arts Council's annual reports and financial statements available here in the Council's publications section:

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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991.To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the total expenditure, both capital and current, allocated to Culture Ireland each year for the past five year; and the number of artists supported each year.; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33521/24]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Culture Ireland is a unit of my Department with responsibility for the promotion of Irish Arts internationally. In doing so, they work with International presenting partners and annually funded bodies to bring high quality Irish arts, across all artforms, to global audiences.

In terms of expenditure, Culture Ireland does not have a dedicated capital allocation. Details of the current funding allocations for Culture Ireland from 2020 onwards are as follows;

Further details of 2023 and 2024 allocations can be found in the published Revised Estimates Volume for 2023, available at .

In relation to annual expenditure relating to Culture Ireland since 2020, I would refer the Deputy to the published annual appropriation accounts at .

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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992.To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the total expenditure, both capital and current, allocated to the night-time economy support scheme each year for the past five years. [33526/24]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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In 2020 I established the Night-Time Economy Taskforce as part of the commitment in the Programme for Government. The assets.gov.ie/198233/43608ada-27d4-4bb4-ad16-f1ea0f3ec1d0.pdf) was published in September 2021. It is a Cross-Government Report containing 36 actions across a broad range of issues associated with the Night-Time Economy.

My Department is largely responsible for the recommendations within the Report that aim to increase the diversity of events and cultural opportunities for families and other age-groups at night. In support of Action 1 in the Report I launched the Night-Time Economy Support Scheme in 2022 which supported licensed and unlicensed premises to host events during off-peak times during the week. In 2023, I extended the scheme to support small museums and galleries.

The total expenditure, including the allocations for both schemes is listed below:

These pilot schemes allowed businesses and venues to try something new with the aim of providing a more long-term, sustainable programme and helped to support the economic and cultural growth in our towns and cities right across the country.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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993.To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the total expenditure, both capital and current, allocated to the local live performance support scheme each year for the past five years. [33527/24]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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The Local Live Performance Programming Scheme (LLPPS) was launched as part of a suite of supports for the live entertainment sector during the pandemic. The LLPPS facilitated the programming of hundreds of outdoor live performances in 2021, animating town centres for local communities, as public health considerations permitted.

In 2022 this scheme continued to help underpin the recovery of the live performance sector at a local level by assisting local authorities to fund live performance events that engage the services of local artists, musicians, technicians, producers and other professional practitioners. As with other COVID-related supports, this scheme has now concluded.

In terms of expenditure, no capital allocation applied to LLPPS. Details of the current expenditure for this scheme from 2020 onwards are as follows;

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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994.To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the total expenditure, both capital and current, allocated to the artists' workspaces scheme each year for the past five years. [33528/24]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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I launched the Artist Workspaces Scheme on 12 June. Under the scheme, capital funding of €6m is available to local authorities to meet the Government’s commitment under the Programme for Government to increase the provision of affordable workspaces for artists and creative practitioners. Due to the fact that just six weeks has elapsed since the launch of the Scheme, no payments have yet been made to local authorities.

My Department has also allocated capital €3m capital to Dublin City Council for the ‘Space to Create’ programme which I jointly launched with the Mayor of Dublin last year. This will see the development of sixty artist workspaces in various sites across Dublin City, a number of which are already in place. With matched funding, the total cost of this project will amount to €9m.

Funding was also allocated to artist workspaces through previous capital funding schemes operated by my Department including the Arts and Culture Capital Scheme, Cultural Capital Scheme and earlier schemes. Scheme E of the Cultural Capital Scheme is currently open and accepting applications. Grants of up to €50k in capital are available to not-for-profit arts and culture organisations (including artist workspaces) for projects that reduce the carbon footprint or provide additional capacity for artistic production. Almost €530k has been awarded to date under this scheme to eligible organisations from a budget of €1.4m. Full details for Stream E are available on my Departments website.

Details of all cultural capital grant expenditure are provided on my Department's website showing the grantee and the annual amounts paid by county each year as follows; . Details of the annual funding allocations provided by my Department for the Arts & Culture programme are available in the annual Revised Estimates Volume (REV) under Vote 33 and supplementary estimates published by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and are available on that Department's website at .