Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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153. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the reason for the €10.9 million underspend on subhead B7 ‘Cultural infrastructure and development’ projects in 2023; the details of all large-scale culture infrastructure and development projects that have not been progressed; the reasons therefor; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34913/25]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The B7 Cultural Infrastructure & Development Subhead provides capital funding to support the arts capital programme of my Department. The objective of this programme is to assist arts and culture organisations, local authorities and National Cultural Institutions to upgrade their arts facilities or develop high quality, well-designed and sustainable facilities to maximise access to and participation in arts and cultural activities. Many of the projects are multi-year in nature and spend varies from year to year.

The B7 Subhead totaled €36.692 million in 2023 which included an allocation of €30.192 million for the year and a carryover of €6.5 million from the previous year. In that year, the total expenditure from the subhead was €25.783 million. A total of €7.8 million was carried into 2024, leaving an underspend of €3.109 million.

There a number of reasons for the underspend in this subhead in that year. In particular, the subhead funds the redevelopment of a number of National Cultural Institutions under the NDP which will redevelop the institutions for generations to come. These projects often involve the redevelopment of city-centre heritage buildings, which is a challenging undertaking by its very nature. While work is ongoing on most of the projects in the Department’s NDP portfolio, they are at various stages of project life cycle of the Infrastructure Guidelines. The development of these complex projects is based on a thorough business case process and involves economic analysis, detailed design, applications for planning permission, extensive procurement processes and the input of specialist expertise. In 2023, spend was not as anticipated due to delays in a number of projects contributing to the eventual underspend. An update on the current position of these projects and all other Project Ireland 2040 projects is available on the My Project Ireland Interactive Map and Tracker website.

Additionally in 2023, some projects across a number of smaller capital schemes did not progress within their time frame due to various issues such as delays in completion of legal charges to be placed on grantees’ properties or delays due to cost increases with grantee needing to secure further funding. COVID-19 also stalled and then slowed down a small number of projects and accordingly these projects didn’t progress as expected in 2023.