In welcoming this Estimate and the 40 per cent increased allocation to the arts I might point out the possible tendency for all parties to fall into some cosy consensus about the status of the arts in our society. Frankly, I do not think that is the case. I think there are major differences of emphasis between the parties in the way in which the arts are supported and developed in our society.
I want to welcome the Taoiseach's presence in moving this Estimate. It is significant in our society that the arts come under the responsibility of the Taoiseach and his Department. It is significant also that the Taoiseach himself moved the Estimate. However, I am somewhat disappointed that he did not avail of the opportunity more to demonstrate his party's reliance on the private sector in other areas vis-á-vis economic growth, or to take the same political opportunity perhaps to exhort the private sector to take on the role his party would envisage in the overall economy. From my reading of his opening speech there is little exaltation by the Taoiseach of the role of the private sector in developing the arts. Perhaps this is at the base of many problems in our society today. First of all there is no clear definition of the function of the arts in our society. Consequently, we have no clear understanding of the role or indeed the identity of their patron in a modern society. I believe that has led to a certain schizophrenia in regard to the State undertaking certain activities in supporting the arts and the private sector using the arts, crudely speaking, as a hedge against inflation in certain circumstances.
What we deserve in this House is a good debate on the arts, at some stage the production of a White Paper on the arts from the Taoiseach's Department and an elaboration of the role of the arts in our society over the next ten to 15 years. In my view, and in the view of my party, without such definition the report on education in the arts will fall between a number of stools: for what is one educating people if there is no clear understanding of the role of the arts in our society? It would be fair to say that our perception of the arts ranges from being able to present an acceptable face to illustrious foreign visitors to more directly being able to earn hard foreign currency by way of artistic activities. Somewhere between those two extremes, surely, in the Ireland of 1979, there is a position that can be worked out stating that the arts constitute an integral part of our society.
It is quite significant that both the Fine Gael spokesman and the Taoiseach have not paid enough attention to the role of the cultural worker. They are one of the most vulnerable and exploited categories of workers in the EEC. Full support must be given to the efforts of the Arts Council and to the status of other agencies attempting to define, improve and secure the conditions of cultural workers here. By virtue of funding the Arts Council the State has taken upon itself, indirectly, the role of patron, through an autonomous body. We are congratulating ourselves on the amount of money we are spending, which I welcome, but could we not spend more money and get a positive social benefit in every sense of the word from the spending of it?
With the permission of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle I will read an extract from the 1977 Annual Report of the Arts Council, because last year's has not yet been published. Paragraph 2 of page 7 of the Report reads as follows:
From a cursory comparison of the total grant for 1977 (£1.2 million) with the funds in 1976 (£990,000) it might appear that the 21 per cent increase in allocation should have been sufficient to tide arts organisations over short-term difficulties. However, there are three main reasons why this apparently generous increase falls completely short of their actual requirements. In the first place, a proper level of funding has never been provided for arts activities, either at local or at national level. A continual history of underfinancing has led to a precarious reliance by grant-aided bodies on bank borrowing, so much so that a significant proportion of the Council's funds must now be used to meet interest charges. Secondly, inflation in the arts negated the value of most of the increased allocations granted during the year. Finally, the number of organisations applying to the Council for support continues to grow, thereby increasing competition for already inadequate resources. In these circumstances it is difficult even to contemplate the major developments that must be undertaken before arts activities can be financed in a manner commensurate with their needs. The present expenditure of the Arts Council in Ireland works out at about 50p per head of population per year, while the per capita expenditure of our nearest neighbours is as follows: Northern Ireland—78p; England—89p; Scotland—£1.14; Wales—£1.41.
Without wishing to denigrate the increase given we must put it in the proper context. It is a 40 per cent increase on a very low base, and we are comparing ourselves with poor relations in the EEC which will probably become poorer when the public sector cuts begin to swing in Britain. In 1977 terms, we spent the price of a pint per head of the population in promoting the arts. It is hard to reconcile that tangible commitment to the arts with the kind of verbal support that frequently emanates from all of us. When replying, will the Taoiseach give some indication of the likely development of the role of the arts in society as he and his Government envisage it? What kind of forward programming can be legitimately made by the Arts Council and what kind of forward planning can be made by people responsible for education in the arts? Unless we can get that sort of framework we will just go from year to year. Indeed the last two or three years in the arts have been crisis years in terms of finance.
The Taoiseach will be the first to admit that his generous response of a Supplementary Estimate of £½ million was a reaction to the crisis management that the depression and inflation has forced upon those administering in the arts over the last three or four years. While I was a member of Dublin Corporation I was party to some of the discussions with the Dublin Theatre festival and I was aware of the difficulties that that organisation encountered. I welcome the increase, but it must be clearly set in its context.
In order to establish the level of expenditure on the arts we must define its central importance in society. We hold that the arts are an integral part of society for a number of reasons, not least of which is their commercial importance. It was estimated, for example, that between 1958 and 1974 the film industry alone brought sums in the region of £50 million into the country. That was a considerable amount of money in those years. If we integrate the role of the arts with the activities of Bord Fáilte in relation to tourism and development we will see that there is a commercial role for the arts that can be quantified. They are the minimal arguments that must come in a society which tends to put every value in tangible financial terms. There are other values to be attached to the importance of the arts and they are central to our image of ourselves. Anyone with a serious developed view of humanity must see that human beings are not mere economic beings and that their status and basic values demand that some form of artistic expression be encouraged. The more our society develops the more artistic expression is needed.
Let us look at what the Government are doing in relation to the arts. The Estimate for the Department of Foreign Affairs is still in progress, and I spoke on it on behalf of our spokesman Deputy Liam Kavanagh who was successfully busy elsewhere. I brought to the attention of the Minister who moved the Estimate the fact that while provision had been made in the Estimate for cultural activities, a major impediment to achieving cultural objectives was the fact that there was a queue of applicants wishing to sign cultural agreements with the Government, that had not been satisfied. If we wish to present an image of Ireland's culture to our EEC neighbours and to other countries, we are being seriously hampered by the absence of formal cultural agreements which, in the world of diplomacy, are a prerequisite to exchanges of exhibitions and of various cultural forms of activity. I know that the Taoiseach is not directly responsible for these, but one cannot talk on the Estimate for the Arts Council without making reference to these cultural agreements. I welcome an apparent increase in enthusiasm and activity for these agreements and for increasing the status of the administration responsible for this within the Government services. However, a report that I am aware of causes me some concern.
There seems to be an unnecessary emphasis on cultural agreements with our EEC partners to the exclusion of other applicants who wish to develop cultural agreements with us. I respectfully suggest to the Taoiseach that an opportunity to develop cultural agreements with third countries—I mean countries outside the EEC—should not be turned down simply because we think we have not sufficient agreements with other EEC states. By virtue of all our other activities we have considerable relations with the EEC countries, and it would be a mistake, therefore, to postpone applications for cultural agreements with other countries, and I particularly refer to the application of the Soviet Union for such an agreement.
As Deputy Briscoe knows, in this House I have been critical of the denial of human rights by the Soviet Union to some of its citizens. However, in the context of the Helsinki pact, what is needed primarily is the strengthening and developing of communications with the signatories of that pact. In so far as there are major ideological differences between us and the Soviet Union, a cultural agreement would go a long way towards helping us to understand each other's political systems, and this would be of considerable mutual benefit. Therefore, I strongly urge the Taoiseach not to postpone such a move until such time as he and the Government consider they have sufficient agreements with other EEC countries.
We are about to assume the Presidency of the EEC. We wish the Taoiseach every success on behalf of the Irish people. With his interest in the arts, he should pursue the status of cultural workers in accordance with the draft EEC directive currently being discussed. A positive move in this matter would improve the role of the artist and the position of the artist, as distinct from the role of the arts, in Europe. We have been tending to concentrate all our energies on the arts per se, and not on the creators of the arts, the performers, the writers and the painters. During the term of our Presidency I should like the Taoiseach through the relevant Departments—Social Welfare would be one of them—to pursue that directive and to give it the sort of push that is needed.
I understand we have only two cultural agreements of a substantial nature and there is an informal one with one of our EEC partners. I can understand why in the past there was some reluctance to get these off the ground. The Labour Party welcome these increased activities and will give them every support.
I will move now to the position of the arts at local level. A unique provision in the 1973 Arts Act was that which enabled local authorities to spend money on the arts directly. I had the pleasure to move on that loophole in Dublin Corporation with the active assistance of Deputy Briscoe and others. I fear, however, that that provision which enabled us to raise a cultural budget in Dublin Corporation in 1975-76 of £50,000, from which many organisations benefited, will be negated by the Local Government Act of this year unless the Taoiseach gives some indication to the Custom House that local authorities may include in their estimates each year a provision for the arts.
In present conditions such a provision would be erased with a blue pencil by the Custom House. Having taken upon himself the centralisation of local finance through the abolition of rates, the Taoiseach has removed a lot of the autonomy of local authorities in regard to the raising of money for the arts at local level. There should be some counterbalancing in terms of finance so that local authorities can put money into the arts. Perhaps the Taoiseach will give some indication to the Minister for the Environment to provide guidelines for local authorities in this respect, what kind of percentage they should earmark for the arts, before the responsible officer in the Department of Finance begins to go berserk.
If a move in this direction is not initiated, regional arts officers throughout the country will in future be unable to travel to Dublin every six weeks for meetings with the Arts Council, and the work of these important people will be frustrated totally. If there is not some system of local funding for the arts, possibly equivalent to the Road Fund or to housing, we are not really being sincere in the way in which we want local authorities to get involved in financing the arts.
This will create problems in a variety of ways for the Taoiseach and the Departments of the Environment and Finance, particularly because the Taoiseach apparently does not perceive any role for the private sector of the economy as a primary patron of the arts, the State apparently being the primary patron, even at local level, because he controls the degree of patronage which any local authority can exercise. Therefore, subsequent to this year's local Government Act, it is necessary that some guideline should be given to the local authorities. I can assure the Taoiseach that the increased Labour Party representation on local councils will be pressing for this.
Another question concerning the arts at local level is the provision of local venues. I am glad to see the Leas-Cheann Comhairle in the House, because his home county and Wexford town have provided an effective venue for the arts in the Wexford Arts Centre. That county has preserved a piece of the architectural fabric of that town, the old Corn Exchange, and the people there, after some pressure, resisted the temptation to paint one of the gable walls, ach sin scéal eile. The preservation of such venues should be integrated with the policy of urban conservation, of obtaining new uses for old buildings, particularly of the scale and nature which cannot be used any more for the primary industrial activity for which they were originally designed and cannot be utilised for more obvious pressing social problems such as housing.
We are all aware that in every town and city there are hundreds of such buildings, old mills and factories which are lying derelict or under-utilised. By linking funds from the EEC Social Fund with our youth employment programme and the AnCO schemes in terms of developing projects for young people we could provide venues for the arts of varying standards of accommodation. Over a period of ten years we could carry out a programme which would result in us having local arts centres accessible to the vast bulk of our population and run and controlled by local voluntary committees, similar to the model that the people in Wexford have moved forward. We need a programme for this; we need some initiative from the Government, through the Department of the Environment and the EEC Regional Fund and Social Fund. With a 400 per cent increase in our representation in the Socialist Group we will have a slightly louder voice in that regard that we had before.
I should now like to deal with the role of the artist in our society. We are very quick to laud artists when they are successful and even quicker to laud them when they are dead—I do not mean that in any disrespectful way—but we are not so quick to help the struggling artist. In fact, we know very little about the struggling artist, whether it is the person who is anxious to act, paint or draw. One of the good things the Arts Council initiated was their commission of a report on the position and status of the artist, or cultural worker, to give him the EEC consensus title. I gather that that report will reveal, among other things, that the average per capita income of the artist per annum in current terms derived from his or her activities in the arts is £1,500 and that most artists have to supplement their earnings by way of teaching or having their spouses or children fund their activities to bring them up to the average industrial wage of about £4,000. That is simply in terms of the money that is taken by the artist but in real terms the number of hours put in by an artist must be enormous relative to what we regard as an average working week of 40 or 42 hours.
I suggest that the Taoiseach, and other Members, should talk to an artist who is anxious to be a full-time worker in the visual arts, for example. I have been asked by such people how can they sign on at the local labour exchange. What category does a painter or sculptor enter into if he does not have work or money? In effect, such people are outside our social system. Either we take the arts seriously or we do not. I believe that the Taoiseach takes the arts seriously and the granting of an extra £500,000 this year is a fair indication of his personal commitment. However, at the other end of the scale artists are in a limbo land with regard to their integration into the social welfare code. I hope that the Minister for Health and Social Welfare who obtained for himself the unique distinction of getting a tax exemption for artists' earnings where it mattered, at the top of the scale, will display the same type of creative concern for the vast majority of artists who happen to be at the other end of the scale. I had hoped for that kind of initiative when I moved here, on behalf of the Joint Committee, a report dealing with such matters. I wish to repeat that request to the Taoiseach so that, hopefully, by next year's budget, the social welfare code will be broadened and extended to include artists. I accept that that is not an easy stroke-of-the-pen type of decision and that it will involve administrative difficulties. I am aware that it cannot be done readily and that it will provoke all types of difficult queries from one Department to another.
