Vol. 479 No. 2
12 Miss de Valera asked the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht the plans, if any, he has to make up the £12 million shortfall in the Arts Plan, 1995 to 1997, which is only passing the 1995 funding target of £19.6 million in 1997; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12662/97]
As I explained in my reply of 19 December, 1996 to a similar question, the position is that An Chomhairle Ealaíon has redesignated The Arts Plan to cover the five year period 1995-1999 and has reordered its priorities accordingly. It follows that the funding targets in The Arts Plan now apply to this five year period.
The increased provision of £20.8 million for An Chomhairle Ealaíon for 1997 means that I have succeeded in more than doubling An Chomhairle's allocation since my initial appointment as Minister in 1993. It also represents an increase of £2.4 million over An Chomhairle's allocation for 1996, or, in percentage terms, a 13 per cent increase. Percentage increases of the same magnitude in 1998 and 1999, years four and five of the plan, will bring the resources of An Chomhairle to a level of over £26 million, the funding target for the final year of the Arts Plan.
I look forward to securing the remaining funding necessary so that in 1999 the funding target for the final year of the plan will have been achieved.
I cannot but be slightly amused listening to Members opposite whose only defence appears to be to ask what the other side did when in Government since the Labour Party, at any rate, appears to have forgotten that some of its members have been in Government for four and a half years. Does the Minister agree his legislative record is abysmal? Three Bills were passed and five others are awaited, including one on broadcasting. Does he agree the £12 million shortfall for 1995-7 has eroded a major part of his election plank, party manifesto and Programme for Government? Furthermore, does he accept that the necessity to redesignate the Arts Plan has necesssitated a revision of priorities with regard to its contents? Would he explain how these issues have been reordered and when he expects to receive the additional funding he seeks from Government?
I suppose it is the atmosphere prevailing that encourages people to take such an historical view. When I began in 1993 the funding for the Arts Council stood at £10.1 million and now stands at £20.8 million. Whether one portrays that through a small or large poster it remains more than double the original figure.
When I decided in partnership with the Arts Council to establish an arts plan, an estimated cost had to be put on its implementation. It was emphasised that the delivery of such an arts plan in an adequate manner would require funding of £26 million. As part of the negotiations with the Department of Finance, it became possible to implement the plan decided by the Arts Council over a five-year period. That is what I did, there is nothing vague about that. There was one interruption in its implementation, which needs to be stressed, which is that in the dying days of a minority Government in November 1994 there was a savage cut of some 13 per cent in the allocation to An Chomhairle Ealaíon for that year from £13.2 million to £11.6 million. I was not then Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, I had been replaced by the present leader of the Opposition, Deputy Bertie Ahern. That was the only time between 1993 and today that, instead of obtaining the increased funding sought, the Arts Council, was fired into reverse. I must assume it is somewhat cynical for any Member to point out that we are reaching the target of £26 million, from a base of £10.1 million, in five rather than three years.
In regard to my legislative programme, I am very happy at the amount of legislation passed and look forward to introducing other measures later this year.
It is rather disingenuous of the Minister to speak about the funding made available until he assumed his present portfolio. It is important to remind him that the target for the Arts Council of £26 million — which was to have been reached by 1997, not 1995 in the Minister's original plan — was promised by him, his party and Government and nobody else, which promise he has been unable to fulfil.
The Minister did not refer to the reordering of the priorities of the arts plan consequent on its becoming a five rather than a three year one. Would he comment thereon for the benefit of Members?
After the decision had been taken to fund the arts plan over a five-year period, its authors, the Arts Council, announced it would be able to retain its integrity within a five year period. The reason for that is simple: the plan has been constructed around modules which meant simply that one could reorder these without losing its integrity for example, with regard to the kinds of issues in which those people in the arts community are interested, when not being encouraged to have unnecessary fears.
——to which The Irish Times referred——
Do different modules not require revision of the plan?
In 1996 and 1997, these parts of the plan were progressed, when partnerships were entered into between An Chomhairle Ealaíon with the local authorities of Laoighis and Donegal. By 1988 all local authorities will have appointed arts officers. In fairness to Deputy de Valera, she will recall that the first arts officer to be appointed was in County Clare and remained a solitary flower for a long time.
In addition, there will have been undertaken a complete review of the provision of theatre in Ireland by the relevant division of An Chomhairle Ealaíon, an important report completed by Combat Poverty and An Chomhairle Ealaíon, aimed at affording access to arts by those who were excluded along with further co-operation with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. No significant elements of the plan had to be deleted but there was rearrangement of all of the modules planned.
It would have been better to have implemented all of its proposals in three years rather than five but that is still preferable to firing the whole project into reverse.
Since the Arts Plan is now more than halfway through its revised lifespan, is it the Minister's intention — if he finds he is returned to his present portfolio after the general election — to present a report on the progress made on the implementation of its objectives?
Will he also state what has been the outcome of the theatre review to which he referred? Has that review group produced a set of recommendations and, if so, when will these be implemented and what progress is being made under that heading within the overall context of the Arts Plan?
It would be a good idea to have a mid-term review of the plan but that is primarily a matter for the Arts Council. I merely gave examples of what had been achieved in 1996 and 1997 to date. I would have no difficulty in placing such an interim review before the House if such has been completed by the Arts Council.
The theatre review, to which there are many different dimensions, was long overdue. I will correspond with the Deputy on its detail but she will appreciate that the quality of venues in her native city has improved immensely over the past two or three years and will improve even more so over the next 12 months when the funding provided for so many venues yields returns, including the magnificent Everyman Palace Theatre; all these magnificent theatres of which I know she is rightly proud.
