The question of how best to mark the millennium is a matter for the Government. As I indicated to the meeting of the Select Committee on Finance and General Affairs held on 6 June 1996, I was invited by the Taoiseach to make a presentation to the Government on the issue of the commemoration of the millennium. I also stressed that any suggestions I mentioned at that meeting did not imply the commitment of additional resources to facilitate their implementation. I have recently made this presentation to the Cabinet and it is now a matter for the Government to decide on how best to address the millennium. The question of whether specific projects will be commissioned to mark the commemoration of the millennium can only be addressed following this consideration by the Government.
With regard to the specific question of a national conservatoire for music and the arts, the Deputy will be aware that this matter was raised in the PIANO report which was submitted to me earlier this year, and which dealt extensively with the issue of musical education, an issue strictly speaking outside its formal terms of reference. However, I welcomed its inclusion. The report makes a case for the establishment of an Irish academy for the performing arts based at the premises at Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin which is currently occupied by the National Concert Hall and departments of University College Dublin. The report visualises that such an academy would not only serve classical music, which is what the term "conservatoire" implies, but would serve all of the performing arts. Departments within the academy, suggested in the report include a department of classical music, obviously, and departments of opera, drama, traditional music, popular music and jazz, music technology and recording techniques, dance, film, video and television, and applied arts. The report recommends that the most economical way of setting up such an academy would be to amalgamate the third level sections of the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Dublin Institute of Technology College of Music.
Given that the Deputy has already raised this matter on the Adjournment Debate in this House on 26 June last, she will appreciate that the recommendation in the report raises many complex issues, including, especially, the issue of the use to which the Earlsfort Terrace site is to be put when it is possible to move the departments of University College Dublin, currently housed there, to the Belfield campus. The Deputy is also aware I have already been in correspondence with the Minister for Education regarding the recommendations in the PIANO report that impinge on her responsibilities, including in particular the recommendation in relation to the establishment of an academy for the performing arts. I can assure the Deputy I will be in further consultation with the Minister for Education with a view to coming to a conclusion on the relevant recommendations in the report.