JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT, CULTURE AND THE GAELTACHT debate -
Tuesday, 20 Mar 2012

Utilising the Arts to Combat Disadvantage: Discussion

Chairman

We will now discuss utilising the arts to combat disadvantage among the young, the old and socially disadvantaged and to encourage their greater integration and social inclusion within local communities. I welcome the witnesses: Criostóir Ó Cuana, uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael; Liam Ó Rinn, cathaoirleach Coiste Náisiúnta na Gaeilge; Deasún Maguidhir, cathaoirleach Coiste Náisiúnta Scór; Máire Ní Ghraham, rúnaí Coistí Náisiúnta na Gaeilge agus Scór; Alan Mac Maoldúin, bainisteoir cumarsáide Chumann Lúthchleas Gael; Mr. Robert Seward, honorary secretary of the Cork Academy of Music; Ms Anne Marie O'Donovan, administrator with the Cork Academy of Music; Mr. Denis Barrett, education co-ordinator with City of Cork VEC; Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon, artistic director with the Graffiti Theatre Company; Ms Geraldine O'Neill, outreach director with the Graffiti Theatre Company; Ms Valerie O'Sullivan, director of service for corporate and external affairs with Cork City Council; Ms Maeve Dineen, community arts co-ordinator with Cork City Council; and Ms Liz Meaney, arts officer with Cork City Council.

I propose we take the four organisations in the following order: Cumann Lúthchleas Gael; Cork Academy of Music; Graffiti Theatre Company; and Cork City Council. As the officials from the cumann have another appointment this evening, I will take them first and we will then deal with the Cork city groups. To facilitate that I propose we take opening statements and put questions to the representatives of Cumann Lúthchleas Gael before we engage with the other witnesses. Is that agreed? Agreed.

By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, you are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence you are to give this committee. If you are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence in relation to a particular matter and you continue to so do, you are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of your evidence. You are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and you are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, you should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

The opening statements you have submitted to the committee will be published on the committee's website after this meeting. Members are reminded of a long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses, or any official by name in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

Before I call on the witnesses to commence, I wish to make the following opening statement. The GAA is one of the organisations in this country of which we can be most proud. While it is a national organisation, it reaches right down into local communities. Some people in the "Celebrity Bainisteoir" television programme did not grasp how involved the GAA is at a local community level until they participated in the programme. As part of our discussions on this area, it would be remiss of us as committee members not to take on board what the GAA is doing at a local level. While there is the obvious issue of the sporting activities that take place, there is also the issue of the local infrastructure it has as an organisation in terms of facilities, resources and premises in which other activities take place that go beyond the broader sporting arena. I will be very interested to hear what the witnesses have to say and what suggestions they might make.

Mr. Christy Cooney

Tá Cumann Lúthchleas Gael buíoch don chomhchoiste as ucht an chuireadh a tugadh dúinn achoimre a thabhairt ar an ról atá ag an gCumann i gcur chun chinn ár gcluichí náisiúnta, ár dteanga Gaelach, ár gceol, ár rince agus ár n-ámhránaíocht agus ar an tacaíocht a thugaimid dóibh.

‘Sé príomh aidhm an chumainn ná forbairt agus cur chun chinn ár gcluichí - iománaíocht, peil Gaelach, liathróid láimhe agus cluichí corr - agus ag an am gcéanna tacaíocht a thabhairt do cur chun chinn ár dteanga, ár gceol agus ár rince.

Tugaimíd tacaíocht don Ghaeilge, don cheol agus don rince trí Scór Sinsear agus Scór na nÓg. Chomh maith, tugaimíd scoláireachtaí chuig na Gaeltachtaí éagsúla d'ár mbaill ag leibhéal na hóige.

I thank the Chairman for his welcome. It is our pleasure to be here today. The GAA is a 32-county organisation with more than 2,500 units in addition to more than 400 units overseas. Among its stated aims since its foundation in 1884 have been the preservation and promotion of Irish sports and pastimes including football, hurling, rounders, handball and the sister codes of ladies football and camogie. An Ghaeilge, Irish dancing and music are specifically listed among those areas of special interest.

The GAA's official guide is also available as Gaeilge as members will be aware. Rule 1.4 states:

Additional Aims

(a) The Association shall actively support the Irish language, traditional Irish dancing, music, song, and other aspects of Irish culture. It shall foster awareness and love of the national ideals in the people of Ireland, and assist in promoting a community spirit through its clubs.

We are justifiably proud of the contribution we make in this area. Many of our clubs, and especially those located ‘sna Gaeltachtaí, organise their games and activities through the medium of the Irish language. A recently formed club in Dublin, Na Gaeil Óga, does likewise. The Irish language occupies a special place in a large number of our other units. All of our clubs must adhere to Rule 1.7 which oversees the use of Irish on all official documentation and stationery. Our clubs are also encouraged to use the Irish language version of their names on playing gear and on official club signage. In addition to everyday use, the Irish language is also given prominence on our match days both through inclusion in our match day programmes and on our public address for stadium announcements. Much of our day-to-day business at central level is carried out as Gaeilge.

In response to the Chairman's opening remarks, as an association our prime responsibility is and always will be the promotion and development of our games. That is through our units both at home and internationally. In a special way our international units carry our games and our heritage internationally. This creates for themselves a sense of community, identity and particularly a sense of Irishness. We are very proud of that contribution we make overseas. Without question we have played a part in the development of Irish society above and beyond the call of duty. We are very much part and parcel of the social fabric of Irish society, of which we are justifiably proud. It is our intention as an association to continue to do so and develop that further into the future. We are open for any questions or observations anybody might like to put to us. We are very happy to be here today.

Chairman

Before I make an opening statement can you give us some insight into Scór, which is probably the most relevant aspect of the work of the committee?

Mr. Christy Cooney

Scór starts at club level. It creates a broader sense of community and of our association's involvement at club level. We aspire to have as many people as possible participate in Irish dancing, music and our language within our club scene. Through Scór, people engage in competitions at club level, divisional level and at county level. This results in winners in the eight areas of Scór competitions. Then, the winners go forward to a provincial final and, in turn, the winners of that go forward to a national final. The national final is due to be held on 21 April this year in Killarney. We expect an attendance of approximately 4,000 people. It is highly competitive and many people put a great deal of time, effort and commitment into its promotion. Mr. Des Maguire is the chairman of our national Scór committee and Moira Graham is the secretary. We maintain Scór brings a considerable dimension of community life to the forefront. We are proud of the contribution it makes not only at adult level but also at Scór na nÓg level. People are justifiably proud of their participation. Attaining all-Ireland success is a remarkable achievement for anyone. During our time we have had some outstanding Scór winners. I imagine Mr. Maguire is in a better position to outline some of these. Perhaps Mr. Maguire will comment on the success of Scór.

Mr. Des Maguire

I have been involved in all aspects of Scór since its foundation in 1969. I am proud be a part of the organisation. Scór means a lot to me. It is one of the greatest achievements for those in the clubs to win a title. As an t-uachtarán has stated, it starts out at local level, then proceeds to county level and then all-Ireland level. It includes dancing, music and everything to do with Irish culture. The only sad thing is that our national broadcaster, RTE, has not televised it for the past two years. It had done so previously. However, I understand TG4 is coming on board. A good deal more should be done from outside our area. We do all we can in this area. There is an outstanding committee in place. This is something we are very proud of in our association.

Chairman

Before I bring in the members of the committee I wish to ask one general question. Previously, I worked in the area of education. One very noticeable element of sports was that many schools had many sporting facilities, including halls and pitches and so on, but by 4.30 p.m. those pitches and halls were closed down. Community groups and sporting organisations often try to get access to basketball halls, football pitches and so on. The GAA is blessed with a series of facilities throughout the country, altogether as a result of the organisation's campaigning and efforts. What consideration has the GAA given to the accessing of these facilities for the staging of arts or community events with an artistic bent?

Mr. Christy Cooney

Primarily our facilities are in place for the promotion of our games. All our facilities are vested in our association and all are insured by our association. The committee will understand that we must be careful to ensure that we protect our association in all respects, especially in respect of litigation and insurance issues. Without question, especially in rural Ireland, the GAA halls, pitches and dressing rooms are probably the only community facilities available. We are the community and we are part of the community. We assist in every way we can to support the community. We endeavour to assist where we can but our primary responsibility and the reason we have facilities in place is for the promotion and development of our games.

The committee should bear in mind that we are dealing with six sports: hurling, Gaelic football, ladies football, camogie, handball and rounders. The need for the use of facilities is perpetual. Recently, we started a social initiative for older men under the patronage of Iar-Uachtarán na hÉireann, Mary McAleese. As part of this we are working hard to reach out to older members of society and the community to get them active in the community. We try to do this through our facilities as well. Our facilities are used by other members of the community. We are pleased to do this once we get adequate notice, once insurance cover is in place and once time is available. Our primary responsibility is to ensure that the facilities are used by our members for the development of our games and also for the development of Scór, the Irish language, etc. It would be wrong of me to say otherwise.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

Perhaps it is particular to the area I represent but my experience relates to the commuter belt area in Kildare North, where many of the towns are really villages with village infrastructure but the populations of large towns. I am referring to the average Irish sized town as opposed to a European sized town. Were it not for the GAA and its facilities many things simply could not take place. The facilities are terrific and essential. Much of the work is associated with schools whether all-Irish schools or schools which teach through the medium of English and it is essential.

We are considering the issue of utilising arts to combat disadvantage. Scór and similar organisations draw in everyone. People present themselves rather than being drawn and they are invited to participate. In the case of Scór, is anything done specifically to target disadvantage? Games tend to draw people from almost every quarter. However does Scór do anything to draw in people who would otherwise not be involved? The object is to try to see if this can be worked on.

Mr. Christy Cooney

I thank Deputy Murphy for her comments. Our organisation is very open. We are happy for any member of society to be part of our association and to take part in the activities associated with our association, irrespective of creed or colour. We are very clear on that. We welcome anyone to be a part of our association. We are happy to encourage the less well off in challenging areas and in major urban areas of cities to be a part of our association, whether this involves our games or Scór activities. Last year, we ran a special urban initiative as part of which we tried to develop our games and to get people who would not normally be a part of our association to become active in our games. We believe we can encourage people to support themselves through our games and once they become members of clubs, they become a part of the extra activities that take place, including those of Scór. We advertise these activities through schools, through our clubs and through our website at a national level. However, we cannot force people to do it. We are perfectly open to anyone participating in Scór. We welcome participation in a significant way because it fosters the involvement of people within Cumann Luthchlás Gael and it creates a love for our language, music, song and dance. We are delighted to have people involved. That is what we do.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

I thank the delegation. They are most welcome and I was delighted with their presentation. I congratulate the delegation on all the great work they do. The GAA is one of the most successful voluntary organisations in the country at so many levels. Had the delegation not mentioned the connection with the local community I would have referred to it myself. In my community the GAA hall is used for many events because of the fantastic facilities. It is used for events from old folks' parties to meetings of various organisations. That link into community is critical for us as a society.

With regard to volunteerism, is there an issue with getting volunteers to participate, particularly in Scór? I am aware there are various different competitions. How are volunteers recruited for that, because it is different as it is an artistic rather than a sporting activity? Do the groups liaise with the local arts officer in their local authorities? The access these officers have to what is going on would be valuable. I thank the group for its presentation and take this opportunity to acknowledge the great work it is doing since 1969, a long time. None of it could be done without the volunteers.

Mr. Christy Cooney

Thank you. We try and identify people at club level who have a grá for the language and our music and try and utilise them to create an environment that will encourage people to become active within Scór. The prime objective of most people is to create a good hurling or football team at all levels so as to win a championship, but throughout the winter Scór can be a tremendous attribute to a club as it brings and keeps people together through social occasions. This is what we try to harness and we have been successful at that. Undoubtedly, we would like to be even more successful.

We do not link in with the arts officer in each county. I suppose that is because we have traditionally organised the Scór competitions ourselves. The fault may be on our side, but we have never had an initiative from the arts officers either offering us support. That is probably because our association is so large. Some of the people from within the arts departments of various councils and the community sector support us in different ways, but not specifically with Scór. We do not have a link with arts officers on how to expand and deliver Scór. We have had some discussions with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann recently on how we can work together and develop Scór on an ongoing basis and on how we can work together to promote and develop the two organisations for some of the major events due over the next decade and to arrange something special for the promotion of our culture. We had a meeting with Labhrás Ó Murchú recently and work is gong on in that regard.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

Cuirim fáilte roimh an grúpa anseo trathnóna. I have a tangential question. There is no doubt that the GAA is an organisation with its ear to the ground and to the parish and which has been involved in all communities across the island. Over the past couple of years since the crisis and the recession, has the organisation detected a pattern with regard to which sectors of communities are more vulnerable? Has it noticed any shifts in either rural or inner city clubs that might indicate areas we may not have considered? Part of the challenge for this committee is to see how the arts can be used to encourage young, old, socially disadvantaged and us to look at greater integration and inclusion. I would like to hear from the organisation whether based on its engagement with communities it senses there are any particularly vulnerable sectors. We know emigration is on the increase, but the organisations experience could inform us on a more macro level.

Mr. Christy Cooney

I will deal with the question in three ways. Emigration is a significant challenge for us and for every family and organisation within the country. However, we are fortunate as an association in that we have over 400 clubs throughout the world now and can create a home away from home and provide a sense of identity for people. When they leave home, they can still identify with a GAA club. This creates a home away from home and provides contacts for accommodation and jobs. These clubs also create a situation where people can bond and create an Irish community and identity abroad. I have seen this happen at first hand throughout the world in the past three years.

One of the challenges that exists for us now is the situation of older people in society, particularly older men who live on their own and who are vulnerable as they do not get the opportunity to mix socially. I have already outlined our social initiative programme which is very much supported by the iar-Uachtarán, Mary McAleese, and her husband Martin who is very involved in trying to promote this programme. We have 180 clubs active in this initiative currently and they are trying to encourage older men back into society, not just through the GAA, but from that to create contacts in wider society and to demonstrate how the State can support them.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

How is that done?

Mr. Christy Cooney

We identify somebody within our clubs who will co-ordinate and visit older people to attract them to come to social evenings, to attend matches, to visit Croke Park museum and to keep them active. These people would have been part of the association years earlier, but would have been lost to us for some time. We believe they can bring some of their strengths and attributes to supporting our association in a way that gets them active in society again, which is the most important part.

Our rural areas have been particularly hit. Some clubs in these areas have been hit with regard to the numbers available to play because of emigration. We believe that in the years ahead we will see amalgamations of clubs, particularly at adult level. This will not happen so much at under age level as that sector is strong and vibrant. However, we will see more amalgamations at adult level to ensure our association stays strong within the community, but does not necessarily field single teams. This will bring a challenge to local communities because the work force is decreasing. There is also less money in circulation because of the fewer numbers of people. This creates a further challenge for the community for keeping community life going in a strong and vibrant way. We would hope that we can maintain our presence in all the communities and remain very much part of the social fabric of communities to keep them alive and well. We believe we have a strong, positive and important role to play in that. Our association has been built on our clubs and the work we do in our communities and the support we get from those communities. Without that, our association will not remain strong and vibrant. That is the challenge for us.

The economy is a challenge for everyone. We are no different to anybody else and must cut our cloth to our measure. We have been doing that, but we still have challenges at club level. We believe our brand is strong and that as an association we do our work well. We believe we are the best at what we do and that we play an important role in the ongoing development of Irish sporting and social life. We will continue to do that for years to come.

Senator Cáit Keane

Míle buíochas. Tá a lán déanta ag Cumann Lúthchleas Gael le haghaidh an Ghaeilge, an teanga agus an spórt. Bhí an GAA agus Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann ann nuair nach raibh éinne eile ann agus rinneadar a ndícheall ansin. I thank the GAA for its presentation. It is sad to think that Scór is not covered on television considering what is covered on television. We could do without some of the programmes covered. It is not even covered on TG4, so I hope somebody from TG4 is listening. However, it should not be left to TG4, which does a good job for the language. It is up to the national station to take the likes of Scór on board.

I checked out the Scór website and noticed it is not broken down on a county basis but that there is a representative for each province. Promotion of culture is not the responsibility of the GAA, but of all the arts. The GAA does a lot for Irish dancing through the facilities it provides in communities, such as the provision of halls for the teaching of Irish dancing. When I checked the website I was looking for a teacher of sean nós dancing, but could not find one. Eventually, Conradh na Gaeilge found one for me, an American who had produced a tape and was teaching sean nós dancing in Ranelagh. There lies an opening for the GAA, Comhaltas or whoever. This lady does a very good job and I would get on to her if I was in charge. This lady seems to be the only one doing it and she gives classes in a few pubs. There is a lack of such activities. I know there are plenty of Irish dancing classes, but sean nós is part of our culture.

I like Scór, but it is all about competition. Some people would like to be in the likes of Scór, but do not want to compete. They want to do it for exercise or to socialise but without the competition element. The GAA provides the halls for organisations and everybody wants to win their county final and the games have to be the main focus of the GAA. I presume the GAA also has a policy on community in general. Disadvantage applies not just to monetary disadvantage and some children in the community are also disadvantaged by disability, the less able but half able, so to speak, who cannot play well at any level but who want to participate. What arrangements are made by the GAA for that type of child or senior adult? I am from Dublin so I refer to links with the likes of Cheeverstown House. The GAA is a 32-county organisation and it is to be complimented in this regard. The relaxation of the rule has done much good.

Mr. Christy Cooney

TG4 is outstanding as a supporter of Cumann Lúthchleas Gael. For example, on Friday night TG4 devoted one and half hours to our uachtarán awards. It showed the All-Ireland club finals which amounted to four hours of television on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday it broadcast five hours of television, showing two live matches and a recorded match. TG4 is very supportive of the Irish language and demonstrates this support visibly. RTE is also very supportive of our association and it broadcasts a significant number of live games throughout the summer. We have an outstanding relationship with both channels and also with TV3 and Setanta which support our games and which I acknowledge. Of course we would like to see a live broadcast of Scór. We are working with TG4 and we hope to have Scór back on the air.

The GAA has two games, peile abú and camán abú which are recreational games for people who may have some form of mild disability or who may be slow in some way or other with regard to how they can participate in our normal game. These games are designed to attract people to participate for enjoyment rather than in competition or in the context of winning.

Senator Cáit Keane

Are these games available in every club?

Mr. Christy Cooney

No, they have been launched at national level and they are promoted significantly. Our pilot programme on urban development was developed last year. Those games were part of the pilot and they were used to attract people who would not normally play our games. These games are not played in a physical way rather we want people of all ages to enjoy them for recreation. One does not need to be flying fit or to be naturally competitive and the games do not require a physical input.

Practically every GAA club and county board now has a website and there is a national GAA website. The national website gives an overview of our activities but the club websites will give an outline of all their activities, including Scór activities and every county's website shows details of competitions. Clubs hold regular cultural nights and these are not necessarily competitive events. The aim is for people to enjoy themselves, to be fit and to be part of our association and the community ethos associated with Cumann Lúthchleas Gael. We encourage this participation because it creates a community dynamic at local level. However, this may not happen as frequently as we would like.

Deputy Patrick O’Donovan

Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh mhuintir Chumann Lúthchleas Gael agus mo bhuíochas a ghábháil as uct an cuntas atá siad tar éis cur os comhair an choiste. Maidir leis an dteanga agus RTE agus TG4 agus rudaí mar sin, i mo thuarimse féin, is mór an trua é nach bhfuil na cluichí ceannais mionúr ar fáil ar RTE roimh chluichí cheannais sinsear na hÉireann. Ba í an bhlian seo caite an chéad bhliain nach raibh na cluichí ceannais mionúr peile agus iománaíochta ar RTE. Is mor an trua é sin mar b'fhéidir gurb é an t-aon am amháin i rith na bliana ina mbeadh seans ag daoine nach gcuireann súil ar TG4 i rith na seachtaine suí os comhair na teilifíse agus an spórt náisiúnta, an peil agus an iománaíocht, a chloisint le Micheál Ó Sé agus é ag tabhairt tuarascála in ár dteanga náisiúnta. Is mor an trua é nach bhfuil sé ar fáil ar RTE. B'fhéidir go mbeidh seans ag Cumann Lúthchleas Gael dul air ais go dtí RTE agus an cheist sin á chur os a gcomhair.

It is a pity the minor All-Ireland final with Micheál O'Shea's commentary disappeared from RTE last year. While TV3 broadcasts it, I regard it as having been the one opportunity for sports addicts to watch a match with a commentary in their native language. Micheál O'Shea always gave a great commentary on RTE and he included references to folklore and he enriched the knowledge of Irish vocabulary. Chuaigh an liathróid ar seachrán. His commentary was very easy to understand as Gaeilge and any of his companions in the commentary box were always very fluent. They were conscious that their audience, by and large, were not native speakers, daoine a bhí an Gaeilge acu ón dúchas.

In my previous job I was involved in preparing young lads for participation in Scór na nÓg over a number of years. I suggest that Scór na nÓg does not have a wide spread of age profiles. A young lad of nine could compete in Scór na nÓg in a recitation competition and be in competition against an older person of 14 or 15 years. This is unfair to a younger person to be compared against an older competitor. I suggest the organisers could introduce more defined age categories or according to school class age. I know from my own experience that Cumann na mBunscoil does a great job and many teachers devote a significant amount of their own time to helping the children outside of school hours. I was useless at hurling or football when I was at school because I was asthmatic and it was not for the want of trying by my teachers. Little did I know when I was teaching that there are resources available from the GAA and I wish to acknowledge this. I had not held a hurley in my hand for 13 or 14 years and I had no confidence in my skills for teaching the children but I received great support from my own club, from the GAA and from Cumann na mBunscoil. These organisations are a great support to teachers who are not skilled at games.

Mr. Christy Cooney

I refer to the observation about the All-Ireland minor finals. It should be noted that more games are broadcast as Gaeilge on television than ever before. The All-Ireland club finals, club semi-finals, the under-21 hurling and football championships the Sunday national league matches, are all broadcast as Gaeilge and this was not the case even ten years ago.

Chairman

I will add to that list by saying League of Ireland soccer and rugby matches are also televised as Gaeilge.

Mr. Christy Cooney

Those are different associations.

Chairman

We live in an inclusive society and the rugby and soccer codes are also being broadcast by the national broadcaster as Gaeilge and this is a very positive development.

Mr. Christy Cooney

I understand the Chairman's point but I can only deal with the organisation I represent. I wish to emphasise the expansion of the GAA in our volume of games on television which are broadcast as Gaeilge. The All-Ireland minor football and hurling finals last year were shown on TV3 and 3e. It was shown on one channel totally as Gaeilge with one of our most prominent players and Irish speakers, Seán Ó hAilpín, as the co-contributor to the presentation. We were very conscious when we went to tender for our games to the various channels that our minor final would be shown as Gaeilge. TV3 won the rights for that, so it showed it on one channel as Gaeilge and on another channel as Béarla. We were very conscious of that.

The real point I want to make is that we have expanded very significantly the volume of our games through the medium of the Irish language over the past ten years and we are thrilled to do that. Not only are they watched at home but they are watched internationally through the medium of the Internet, which is phenomenal.

Scór na bPaisti is not run in every county but it provides for the young child outlined. It is very successful and we are trying to expand it in a significant way but to do that, we must ensure we have the volunteers to run it. We also have Scór na nÓg and Scór Sinsear. We must get the clubs to participate but we are moving in that direction. The point is very valid and we fully accept it that sometimes there can be an imbalance.

We applaud all the múinteoirí who work very hard for us, in particular at Cumann na mBunscoil level. I mention the contribution they make to the development of our games and their commitment to our association not only as teachers in their schools but outside of that. While they are múinteoirí, we would say they are first and foremost GAA people and they make an enormous contribution to our association. I acknowledge that and we do everything in our power to give them whatever support we can.

One of the key things is that we have a club-school liaison officer who helps to support and assist the schools in their work. We believe sport is fundamental to the development of any young person, irrespective of what sport he or she plays. We are delighted that most of the schools play our sport.

Chairman

Mr. Cooney rightly highlighted the international aspect of Cumann Lúthchleas Gael, that it is not just operating the Thirty-two Counties, but on an international stage, and that there are 400 clubs under that structure.

One of the headline events planned for 2013 is the Gathering. Currently, the Taoiseach is in the United States and other Ministers are in other locations abroad laying the foundations for it. It will be a huge opportunity for Ireland to present itself in a very positive light at a cultural level, a heritage level, a sporting level and at many other levels but, most important, it will bring tourists and other attractions to the country in 2013. I am sure the GAA will have a very pivotal and prominent role in that. Have any discussions opened up or has any thought been given at a national level to how the GAA might contribute to the Gathering? Rather than Irish clubs travelling abroad to Australia and the United States, clubs might travel to Ireland during that time.

Mr. Christy Cooney

We have had very significant discussions on an ongoing basis with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. Páraic Duffy, our ard stiúrthóir, and I have had detailed discussions with the Minister in regard to the Gathering and we are totally committed to supporting it in any way we can. I had a meeting last week with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, who is due to launch a major initiative soon in Kilkenny in regard to bringing people to Ireland. We are very much part of that and I will speak on the day in support of it. The Taoiseach launched another initiative last week with Mike Feerick from Galway. We are very involved with Mike Feerick in supporting that.

The Government is pushing an open door and we are very happy to assist in any way we can through our clubs and contacts throughout the world. We have done much work already with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Tánaiste. Last year the Tánaiste attended our Asian games in Korea. A business forum was built around them in which we were very happy to participate and support. I acknowledge in a special way the support we have had from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the development of our games and culture overseas over quite a number of years. I say a particular thank you to Mr. Ray Bassett and Mr. David Cooney for their support in that area. We are committed and we will not be found wanting. We see ourselves playing a very positive role in all these areas in the future.

Senator Cáit Keane

As we are talking to the GAA, could we propose a vote of sympathy to the family of Jim Stynes, who will have a state funeral in Australia?

Mr. Christy Cooney

We thank the Senator for that. Jim Stynes was a very prominent member of our association before he went to Australia. He won an All-Ireland medal with Dublin and was going to be an outstanding Gaelic footballer. His brother Brian won an All-Ireland medal with Dublin after him.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jim last October when I was in Australia with the international rules team. He was going through a very challenging time with his health and had suffered greatly over a number of years. He has been an outstanding ambassador for our country and our association and has played a significant role in ensuring the international rules game between Australia and Ireland stays alive.

I thank the Senator for her vote of sympathy for him and condolences to his family. We would very much like to be associated with them because we have lost a truly outstanding man who made a wonderful contribution during his lifetime in Australia to his club and, in particular, to major charities supporting the less well of which he fronted and supported. That is a tribute and a credit to a wonderful leader.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Cooney and Senator Keane.

I propose that the committee looks specifically at the comments in regard to Scór and television coverage in terms of a recommendation following our findings and the discussions. We will probably make a recommendation not only to RTE but to TV3 on the issue.

That concludes our considerations with representatives of Cumann Lúthchleas Gael. I thank them for their presentation to us. We very much welcome the proposals and suggestions brought before us. This module of the committee's work will continue for another couple of weeks. The representatives are more than welcome to attend as witnesses or to observe proceedings on the Internet. If they would like to make any further submissions in addition to the ones they made today, we would be open to receiving them. I thank the representatives very much.

Mr. Christy Cooney

Mile búiochas, a Chathaoirligh.

Chairman

We will now engage with representatives of the Cork Academy of Music, the Graffiti Theatre Company and Cork City Council. All organisations which encourage people to express themselves artistically are an invaluable resource to all our communities. These are not groups for any select or particular part of society but are essential for all and through which the community and the individual which comprise it come together and work with a shared commitment to achieving communal goals and reflecting shared values. They allow for individual and group expression, which is so important. Society is made up of many different voices and it is the expression of the individual just as much as the communal which leads to a shared outlook.

A comment made by Senator Mac Conghail last week puts into context what we are doing today. When we talk about arts in the community, we tend to look at things in very polar terms in that we have excellence or inclusion. That assumption was challenged very strongly by this committee in that one can have both at the same time. As a result of the type of work being done by the Graffiti Theatre Company, the Cork Academy of Music and Cork City Council as well as by the other witnesses, who have appeared before us, we invited them in to debunk that myth and to show that excellence and inclusion can happen at the same time.

The purpose of these deliberations is to do a number of things. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and not the Arts Council or any other Department is actually the biggest funder of arts, although it is not thought of as such. The Department, through the 34 local authorities, is the lead provider of arts.

One of the things we want to get out of these deliberations is to perhaps look at things in a more cohesive and co-ordinated fashion. We want to hear not just a list of activities but which ones are unique and successful and why so. Most important, we want to hear where the deficits are and where collaborations that should be taking place are not. Groups before the committee previously have made the point that the county and city development boards could be a vehicle for arts co-ordination at a greater level. With the groups attending this afternoon, we will see how groups can be funded by either a city council, a vocational education committee or the Health Service Executive. It is important to create some sort of cohesion to ensure the best benefit for the Exchequer and that resources are appropriately used.

I call on Mr. Robert Seward of the Cork Academy of Music to make his opening statement.

Mr. Robert Seward

I thank the committee for giving me an opportunity to discuss the work of the Cork Academy of Music. I am a voluntary worker with the academy which was established as a voluntary initiative in 1994. We have used a community employment scheme for the past 18 years to run the school. We set out with the aim of giving those considered marginalised, such as the long-term unemployed and early school leavers, the opportunity of learning music to a qualification standard with certification to enable them to take up employment in the music industry or go on to further education. We have maintained that aim for the past 19 years and have put over 1,000 people through the academy. We are proud we have 50 graduates who have completed our foundation and access course in the academy.

Over the years, we have had outreach programmes going out to schools. Two years ago we were asked to start a youth programme in Knocknaheeny. This was new to us as we normally dealt with adults. We took this on in conjunction with Cork City Council and the Department of Social Protection. I was apprehensive about it at the start as the course took on 16 young people. I was pleasantly surprised that after a short period there were extraordinary changes in these young people's self-esteem. We put them on instrument training such as trombones, saxophones, trumpets and music theory, as well as FETAC courses. Some months ago, they performed at Áras an Uachtaráin for the former President, Mary McAleese. The course had led to a complete change in these young people's lives. We are beginning another similar course but there are thousands of young people who want to learn an instrument but are out of the net. Many of them do not like the classroom environment and prefer a hands-on approach. Using music as a tool for social inclusion has been successful.

The academy has helped change many people's lives and had an impact on the community. We currently have a pilot scheme in which we have taken on 30 children from eight to ten years of age in a school in Mahon. Four teachers attend the group on Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. to teach them music theory, percussion, keyboard and guitar. It is working so well there will be large demand for it when it is rolled out citywide. It is a pilot for the regeneration programme for Cork which will be rolled out next September.

Each year, the academy runs a jazz summer school with participation from teachers from abroad which has turned out to be a good cultural event for Cork city.

Like all groups, we have problems with sustainability and funding. Our funding comes mainly from FÁS and other sources. We have no consultation with our funding bodies and they just decide what to give us each year. FÁS was straight in that it allowed moneys for training and materials amounting to €30,000. Four weeks ago, somebody drew a line through it and took €17,500 off this, however. It has left us in the serious position that we have eight weeks funding left. This was done with no consultation and, naturally, we would like to be involved in a consultation process. To prepare a budget for a development and training programme for a year, one wants to know what one is going to get in funding.

Volunteers put a lot of work into the academy. I am proud that it has helped change many people's lives over the past 19 years. The report I sent to the committee contains a list of all the academy's students who went on to third level to complete bachelor and masters degrees. Now there is a significant demand for the academy's programmes. I am happy that Cork City Council has purchased a school for the academy on the North Mon campus which will give the people on the north side of the city their own school of music. I am sure we can develop more of the arts such as drama and so forth in this building.

There is a need for training for young people and I would like to see more support for the type of training provided by the academy.

Chairman

Thank you, Mr. Seward. I now call on Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon from the Graffiti Theatre Company to make her opening statement.

Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon

I thank the Chair. I wish to begin by saying "Happy World Children's Theatre Day". Up to 83 countries are celebrating the event today.

I am accompanied by Geraldine O'Neill from the Graffiti Theatre Company in Cork. Graffiti is a 28 year old professional company which specialises in drama and theatre work for and with babies, children and young people. We have a reputation for creating models of best practice in all our work. A considerable amount of our work has and does engage with young people of all ages in areas designated disadvantaged. In 2011, the company worked with over 2,000 young people designated disadvantaged in a way which was intimate, personal and designed to empower. The age range we worked with was eight months to 18 years.

We are, obviously, going to focus on arts provision for the young and their cultural and social entitlements as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The committee will find the following statistics interesting. Young people constitute 34.7% of Cork city's population base. The majority of social housing stock in the city is in RAPID areas. Out of a total of 8,163 children aged 0 to 5 years in the city, 3,889 live in RAPID areas which represents 48% of the city's total. In a recent UNESCO Ireland report, 25% of young people surveyed reported being unhappy to some degree. In another UNESCO report, 50% of young people surveyed reported they had felt or suffered from depression in the past year. Of those who reported this problem, 82% said they were not receiving help from any source. There are a significant number of people for whom being young is significantly challenging and less positive an experience than we would like to imagine.

During this presentation we will refer to models of our practice all of which involve significant presence in disadvantaged areas and each of which is a model of best practice, research, of careful and significant development and of artistic quality. The highs are when that delivery is matched by the delivery partners' engagement with and coherent development of the model. The lows are where coherence between agencies is lacking or where, for example, one partner withdraws their support.

Ms Geraldine O’Neill

I have been working with the Graffiti Theatre Company for the past 18 years. I am its outreach director and my department runs workshop programmes into over 30 schools in the Munster area. In that area, we work only in disadvantaged schools, working directly with disadvantaged young people. I also run two youth theatres in the Graffiti Theatre Company and our catchment area is Blackpool and The Glen on the north side of the city. We work mainly in designated disadvantaged areas and, consequently, with many disadvantaged young people. I started working in The Glen over 20 years ago. Then, I felt community arts workers were supported, encouraged and inspired by organisations such as Ógra, the VEC and the city council. These organisations pooled funding to support Graffiti's Activate Youth Theatre training programme, film clubs, arts and crafts programmes, drama summer programmes and visits to theatres. In a time of deep recession, the arts in the community were thriving.

Recently, I have been working with some young people in the Youthreach programme in The Glen. As I walked into The Glen I met a girl called Maria. I had been involved in a project with her when she was 16. Maria looks much older than her 33 years and she works as a cleaner in Youthreach. She remembered the film project we did together and when she spoke about it she asked questions about whether she was a good actress and said that we made a really good film. She said that we all wrote it together and that we were good. She remembered the weekend on location in Oysterhaven and said it was the best weekend of her life.

Maria remembers a project from 17 years ago and it was the last arts intervention in her life. She remembers the positive experience and remembers feeling good about herself. I felt both good and bad as I walked away from her because we had abandoned this cleaner and talented actress and writer. There was no other place for her to go and no one to take her hand and encourage her so that she would continue to work in the area in which she was flourishing. In a way, it might have been better if we had never started the project. We had not given her the completed training that would allow her to seek further experiences in the world. Her parents did not know where to go to begin the process. We came into Maria's life because we had an opportunity to work in her community. We gave her one of the most positive experiences in her life but we did not give her the means to leave her community to seek further experience, nor did we start that experience. There was no more money.

Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon

In ImagineNation: The Case for Cultural Learning, the Cultural Learning Alliance in the UK recently published key findings demonstrating the impact of cultural learning on the lives of children and young people. The findings are that learning through arts and culture improves attention in all subjects, participation in structured arts activities increases cognitive abilities, students from low-income families who take part in arts activities at school are three times more likely to get a degree, the employability of students who study arts subjects is higher and they are more likely to stay in employment and students who engage in the arts in school are twice as likely to volunteer and are 20% more likely to vote as young adults.

Ms Geraldine O’Neill

There is a drama game called "fortunately, unfortunately". For the purpose of this conversation I will show the committee how it works. Fortunately, a girl called Maria took part in film project. Unfortunately, the project finished and there was nothing else to do. Fortunately, Maria's child went to a crèche where Graffiti's BEAG artists were making art with babies and toddlers in the local area. Unfortunately, she may go to a DEIS school where the Department of Education and Skills has withdrawn funding for external arts interventions and teachers are discussing the withdrawal of drama from the curriculum. Fortunately, she may end up in Youthreach where, hopefully, the six funding agencies who contributed to our recent project still feel their contributions are a worthwhile investment.

Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon

Developments in neuroscience in imaging and observing the brains of small infants enable us to see the differences in brain development, even brain size, between the stimulated and cared for child and the child who is closed down. Researchers in Scotland, most especially Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk, have even been able to roughly estimate the cost to a state of investing, or not investing, in early childhood and, in our case, in the careful development of a model of best practice in opening the children to the aesthetic world and welcoming their presence in it. Babies do not know that museums, theatres, concerts and exhibitions are not for them. What would it be like to have a generation who saw the creative world as an entitlement?

Ms Geraldine O’Neill

The "fortunately, unfortunately" aspect of arts for the disadvantaged has been a continuous theme throughout my time working in the field. Everyone who works in the field knows there will never be enough money to carry out the work in a manner to which we aspire. According to Dea Birkett, founder of Kids in Museums, culture is about conversations, and at a time when it seems we are not talking enough to each other and generations can be divided, these conversations become more important. We must take the time to teach our disadvantaged young people the language of culture in order for them to have meaningful conversations about it. During a visit to a theatre with a group of young people from Blackpool, one of them remarked to me that they were much too loud for the theatre. He was right. I have learned it is not okay to take a group of young people into a theatre or a museum without teaching them the language and customs of that place.

If we want to alienate our disadvantaged youth from the arts then we should send them into this foreign culture country without a guide book or a dictionary. We should watch as they try to figure out exactly how this culture country works. If you are disadvantaged, then feeling like you are too loud, too noisy or too stupid is a fact of life. I walk into schools where they tell me they are the thickos, the slow ones or the stupid class yet they engage with us through arts. In these arts in context, we offer a place to be creative and where participants are not judged on marks but on other intelligence, perhaps for the first time. It takes time to build the self-esteem that will allow them to take their place in the world of mainstream arts.

Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon

In the past 50 years and most significantly in the past 15–20 years there has been much significant international research on the impact on young people of arts provision from early childhood to teenage years. Those benefits have been seen as instrumental, cognitive, attitudinal and behavioural, health, social and economic forms as well as intrinsic values. In a 1999 study of 25,000 young people across the US, these benefits were achieved regardless of the young person's socio-economic background. The very nature of experiences in the arts was found to develop intelligences of lateral and creative thinking as well as such significant abilities as interpersonal skills, focus and ability to form and express an opinion. The evidence is so strong that the UNESCO second world conference in 2010, Goals for the Development of Arts Education, said that arts education has a critical role to play in the constructive transformation of educational systems struggling to meet the needs of learners in the 21st century. References to many of these significant reports are in the written submission. However, one of the crucial points from the perspective of this committee is that all the reports emphasise not just the arts provision but the quality of the arts provision. In working with young people, the provision needs to be informed, expert and profoundly conscious that only the best will do. Quality can be assessed. The Belgian theatre director of theatre for children aged one to three, Charlotte Fallon, asks what if our life was full of firsts and asks whether we could bear the intensity. Every time the artist encounters a new group of children or young people, we have to make it the best and that does not come cheaply.

Ms Geraldine O’Neill

When considering how local authority funding of the arts can best be co-ordinated to ensure it is targeted to the benefit of the socially disadvantaged, we need to be aware of how much ground work has to be done before we can look at words like integration. With regard to that, let me take the committee through the steps involved in our recent intervention in The Glen Youthreach. Two years ago, I came to the realisation that the type of conversation I took for granted with Activate Youth Theatre and Physically Phishy Youth Theatre were very different from the ones I can conduct when dealing with marginalised groups. Our youth theatres took for granted their freedom to express their ideas, their right to be listened to and their ability to share concepts. Our youth theatres operate in a sophisticated environment and we conduct meaningful, open conversations with young people of ten to 22 years. This is a positive emotional experience for all concerned and positive emotions broaden, build and transform us.

On the other hand, when learning is something one dreads because it only brings to the surface previous negative experiences, there are only negative, not transformative, experiences.

We must look at the way we can begin to open those minds, and again we look back to conversations and telling stories, which is what we do in a world of drama. We tell stories that have the capacity to connect us to the larger world. Through listening and sometimes performing and creating these stories, we learn to reflect on and figure out the world around us, to reach into ourselves and to view the world in a more balanced form.

As I felt we needed to give our disadvantaged young people an opportunity to have meaningful conversations, Graffiti Theatre Company commissioned a young playwright, who was a school drop-out, to write three monologues. We performed these monologues in The Glen Youthreach and afterwards asked if anybody would be interested in writing a play. We had an overwhelming response, and then began to look for funding. Last year, Cork City Council gave us a research grant and we carried out a series of drama skills workshop in The Glen. From the initial overwhelming response, we ended up with six dedicated young people who had caught the drama bug.

The road to the meaningful conversations we now have with those young people has not been easy. We have had issues of commitment and behaviour, but mostly issues of self-belief. They did not believe they could do it, but they did. Every week we had to assure them that they are talented, creative human beings who are capable of making art. They have made a play. Last week, they were in the Theatre Development Centre in the Triskel Arts Centre where they spent one week polishing and finishing the structure of a play entitled "36 hOURS". That took 20 weeks of steady work with three professionals, a playwright, a director and a research psychologist. For every hour of drama and writing, we have had three hours of reassurance and confidence building but we have a group of six people whose self-confidence and self-belief has spilled over into every aspect of their work in Youthreach. That is the ratio that works, three professionals to six young people. After 18 years of work in this field I know that the 1:2 ratio works - one person working to build the confidence of two disadvantaged young people. There is no better ratio than that but it is expensive. We had to apply to five funding organisations for support, namely, Graffiti Theatre Company, Cork City Council, City of Cork VEC, the Swortzell Fund, and Corcadorca's Theatre Development Centre.

Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon

This is a problem. There is no coherent strategy for development and the pockets of money from many different areas of Government simply do not add up to an adequate garment of provision. All local authority arts funding could be targeted specifically to areas of disadvantage but it still would not be enough to provide quality arts interventions in a way that provides for sustained development in quality artistic practice.

Quality practice takes time to build. El Sistema, the music education project for all children in Venezuela, has taken 30 years to build to 110 youth orchestras and 55 children's orchestras. Quality practice means quality practice from the artists, the teachers-support systems and the young people. That takes sustained and coherent commitment from government, as the Chairman will appreciate. It takes a recognition at the highest level that much modern research demonstrates the centrality of creative thinking in the 21st century. We want to see quality art experiences for every child in this country as is their right under Article 31 of the Rights of the Child.

Ms Geraldine O’Neill

Quality experiences in the arts for children need to be intimate and personal. That costs money but, more than money, these interventions need coherence, planning and strategic development. Government agencies must create meaningful conversations with each other about the ground work that needs to be put in place to allow these disadvantaged communities take part in any arts initiative. Every year I hear phrases such as "There's money in mental health this year" or "Everyone says there's lots of money to be had in drugs this year" and therefore every year we dress up the project needed for the work but it is never enough. Funders must get together to fund the groundwork first.

Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon

We thank the committee for inviting us to make the presentation and appreciate that it demonstrates an awareness of and commitment to quality arts provision for people living in disadvantaged areas. We hope the statistics and the arguments made will be helpful to members.

Ms Geraldine O’Neill

In terms of what this committee can do, it can start conversations with other Departments and agencies working in the field. It can point to the international research. It can share the case studies and models of best practice. It can demonstrate confidence that coherent and planned development could create Marias who feel empowered and confident of their entitlements in a better Ireland.

Chairman

I now call Ms Valerie O'Sullivan from Cork City Council.

Ms Valerie O’Sullivan

I thank the Chairman and members for inviting us here to discuss how we can utilise the arts to combat disadvantage among the young. My colleagues on my right are Ms Liz Meaney, our arts officer in the city council, and Maeve Dineen, our community arts co-ordinator. Members who are aware of or are witness to the vibrancy of the arts and culture in Cork city will know these people are two of the main driving forces behind what makes that happen in the city.

Before I make my opening statement I urge the Chairman not to use development boards as the conduit to co-ordinate-----

Chairman

That proposal had come in from some other local authorities.

Ms Valerie O’Sullivan

It would not be one I would subscribe to, and my statement will illustrate the reason for that.

For many years Cork City Council has invested time, resources, money and imagination in the art, and we are delighted to present some aspects of this work to the committee today. The committee's focus is on combating disadvantage and encouraging social inclusion and integration. We share that perspective but expand upon it. The city council in Cork sees the arts as one of the key pillars upon which our city is built.

Each of us live in a place made up of many different things including the house in which we live, the school we attend and what we do in our free time. Individuals who experience social, cultural, educational or economic disadvantage will not have all of their problems solved by engagement with art. Many of the problems people face are complex to resolve but as a local authority we are particularly aware of that complexity, given the range of services we provide. Yet if art plays a real and active role in one's life, it can impact hugely upon a person.

Recently I spoke to a young man who is an artist. In 2005, when Cork was European Capital of Culture, he participated as a student in a number of events. It was then that he realised he could live his life as an artist in Cork. The experience of the exceptional, in the place where he lived, made his professional life since then possible. However, I also know an older man who fought tirelessly to raise the money to create a sculpture commemorating an important location in his community. That man had never walked into the Crawford Art Gallery, despite living five minutes away for all his life.

Where is the difference in those two cases? Both are clearly engaged and motivated by art. Regrettably, knowing the two men in question, the difference is their socio-economic, educational and cultural background. For one, culture was a right but the other did not see it as such. How we change that is our challenge. Access to the arts and culture is a right for all of our citizens, not just those who were exposed to it through an accident of birth.

We agree with the committee that we must reach people in our city who do not see culture as a civic right. We need them to have the same level of entitlement and privilege in terms of how they access the arts, be it in their own community or on the stage of the Everyman Palace Theatre. Local authorities are not creators of art but we create the circumstances and the supports whereby individuals, citizens, organisations and artists can reach their full potential, explore their ambitions and create new work.

Under the Arts Act 2003, local government must devise an arts strategy. That is a statutory obligation placed on local authorities. However, there is no imperative in legislation for local authorities to fund the arts. That paradox, which affects provision at local level, is one of the key issues we wish to draw to the committee's attention today but we do fund the arts, even without that statutory obligation on us to do so. The benefit in kind we provide in Cork city in particular in place of hard cash that we do not get from the central Exchequer is unquantifiable. Many of the organisations the committee will talk to in this series of presentations operate in the absence of ongoing core revenue funding sufficient to their needs.

There is perhaps no greater betrayal then to engage in people's lives on an ad hoc basis and then walk away because that support could not be sustained. Expectations are raised but no pathways are provided for people to follow.

We make the case today for the development of policy and funding for the provision of arts programmes administered by local authorities within local communities, particularly targeting people who might otherwise not engage with cultural life.

Ms Meaney will detail in general some of the work of the arts office. She will be followed by Ms Maeve Dineen who will give members an example of two of the initiatives taking place in the city. I will then conclude the presentation.

Ms Liz Meaney

I will outline to members the context in which much of the work we do takes place. It is vital that there is a rich and strong infrastructure before this engagement can happen.

I will refer briefly to the work the city council does in this area. Following the Arts Act 1973, the council began awarding arts grants in 1974. We are on our fourth arts plan, a copy of which has been circulated to members. We are based in the tourism events, arts and marketing unit and the local authority has consistently invested in the arts. Recently, there has been a growing awareness of the power of the arts to bring focus, pride and economic return. For many years, we have invested in this. We are aware not only of this power at local, national and international level and its importance to, say, a large business moving to the city but also to people or children on their doorsteps. It can make a difference in their lives to have a connected community with a sense of place.

Our view of the arts is holistic. We do not concentrate solely on outreach programmes, provision in areas of disadvantage; we concentrate on the infrastructure, the excellence of arts practice and, therefore, it is as important to us to have artists living and working in our city who can engage in this practice as it is to have those programmes. It is all part of an ecology of art in an urban context

A range of programmes are offered and delivered by the arts office. For example, I have a book of poetry that was written and created by young secondary school children. It is the unfinished book. This programme has been running for six years and this is the result of a ten-week programme where poets go into four secondary schools and write poetry with young people. This is a programme offered by us directly. We lever support for other programmes. The council was recently awarded, through Music Network, one of the music education programmes in collaboration with the Cork Academy of Music among other programmes and the roll-out of this €1.3 million project across the city will be led by Cork Vocational Education Committee. We are also involved in Arts and Disability Networking Cork, which provides training and resources for the development of facilities for people with a range of disabilities. This is also done in collaboration with the Arts Council. BEAG, which was referred to by the Graffiti Theatre representatives and to which Ms Dineen will refer in more detail as a case study later, is a programme for arts in early years.

Infrastructure is needed to support the arts and, annually, we support more than 70 different arts organisations in the city. Our budget is in excess of €2 million and it is on a par with that of the Arts Council. The grants range from €250,000 to Cork Opera House to €400 to a painting group. We also support the targeting of arts programmes to those communities that might otherwise not have the opportunity. An example is the Glen project referred to by Ms Fitzgibbon, which was started by a research grant through our arts in context grants.

There is a complex pattern of delivery by the local authority at every level. We also house organisations, which is one of the key actions local authorities can implement. As with the person, if an organisation has a home from which to build and grow, it has security. We have witnessed this over and over again. We house more than 20 arts organisations, among them the Graffiti Theatre and the National Sculpture Factory, and we will soon house the Cork Academy of Music. We have a range and complexity of housing of the arts so we have spaces in which art is made or seen or given a platform, such as the Cork Midsummer Festival.

We also give capital investment to other major buildings in the city such as the Cork Opera House and Everyman's Palace Theatre. We are examining other ways we can incentivise the use of buildings for the arts. In common with other local authorities, the 50% vacancy levy is applied to buildings occupied by cultural organisations. Recently, we housed Cork Community Circus in collaboration with a developer in the city and it now has a base from which to grow. We look to the creation of spectacular, unusual, inventive work in public spaces. For instance, during Cork 2005, Cork City Courthouse was taken over for a Corcadorca production of "Merchant of Venice". Cork Community Artlink, one of our major organisations, created a 15 ft "Dragon of Shandon" made from Sellotape. It is important that these extraordinary things happen in the place one lives because that can change one's perspective. As Ms O'Sullivan said, if a young artist sees that reality in the place he or she lives, his or her life as an artist becomes a reality for him or her.

As a local authority, we must always look at the community of citizens whom we serve because that is the role of local government. Cork's population is approximately 120,000, having fallen in the 2006 census. Relatively, Cork City Council is the fifth most disadvantaged local authority in the State. We have a high proportion of young children living in RAPID areas in the city and 12.5% of our population has a disability. This is significantly higher than the national average of 9.6%. In addition, 13% of our citizens are aged over 65, which is higher than the national average of 10%. We have case studies of two programmes, which Ms Dineen will go through.

Ms Maeve Dineen

We wanted to give the committee two examples of projects which would be helpful to look at the different ways in which we support and enable projects to happen within the community. The first is BEAG, which is a strategic project to develop the potential model of early years arts delivery and to look at the development of early years arts practice. The other is a directly funded project called four leaf clover, which women undertook in their own communities having applied to us for funding.

BEAG has a team of three artists - a musician, a visual artist and a dramatist - working in an integrated team with the support of Graffiti Theatre Company, which is the organisational partner. The artists researched, developed and delivered tailored workshops and performances in music, visual and sensory experiences, storytelling and play for the very young. The project is funded through Cork City Council, Cork County Council and the HSE and, therefore, it was a strategic partnership.

The artists visit 12 child care settings in the city and county for more than nine months of the year working and sharing experiences and learning with child care workers. Five of the six crèches in the city are based in RAPID areas. BEAG is about both process and outcome. There is much evidence to support that children's experience of the arts and of creative play exploring their imagination through their senses between the ages of zero and three impacts them wholly in their social, physical, intellectual, creative and emotional development.

We invited Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk, a leading early year's scientist, to speak when we launched the BEAG report on the pilot phase. She is a former senior lecturer in developmental psychology at Dundee University. She stated:

If we overlook the early years, then we all pay for it, through the services that governments need to fund, such as prisons, mental health programmes, hospitals, fostering arrangements, and others. Tackling many of society's challenges can best be done by paying attention to the emotional needs of babies.

BEAG is innovative, integrated and has the potential to be sustained. We are currently exploring funding supports to expand the reach of this programme, as we believe what is being created has enormous value and importance. The artists are creating their own new work because of the stimulus provided to them by the programme.

Four leaf clover, the other case study, is a project undertaken by a group of women from the Ballyphehane-Togher Community Arts & Crafts Initiative. The group is supported through the community development programme in the area. An arts in context grant from Cork City Council enabled them to work with a contemporary visual artist, Ms Marie Brett, on a textile-based intergenerational project. The vision of this project was to share the skills in traditional crafts of knitting and crochet with the next generation, while also applying contemporary textile art practices to create a number of original pieces that reflected both personal and community stories. The project involved children from the local primary school, parents and other older women from the area and, therefore, linked three generations. It included mixed media self-portraits, which were intimate and contemplative. There was a great opportunity to share stories and memories in a safe environment and in a safe place for the children to explore and interpret these stories with the women. Skills were shared and consolidated and new contemporary artwork was formed as part of it with a sense of pride and ambition.

The experience in terms of the women's arts development and learning gained through this project meant the core group of women participants could accept an invitation from the Crawford Gallery to undertake an ambitious project to create new work for the gallery as part of the Bealtaine Festival in 2011. Ms Teresa McCarthy, a worker on Ballyphehane-Togher community development programme, stated:

This was the culmination of a great working relationship where community and civic arts worked together to create a very community rich exhibition. With the support of the artists from the Crawford Gallery the women were encouraged to use their many skills in creating this work.

Ms Valerie O’Sullivan

I would like to conclude by making a number of key points. Given the scope, strength and depth of work going on at council level, there should be local authority representation on the Arts Council. It is about time that there was.

There should be cohesive arts policies employed across Departments and agencies - I include the HSE's arts and health policy - in the implementation of the recommendations in the Points of Alignment report of the Department of Education and Skills. Currently, local authorities arts activities operate for the most part under the Arts Act 2003. The Arts and Culture (Practitioners) National Interactive Strategy of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, published in 2011, addresses the manner in which local authorities collect data and interact with the various communities of interest. The Arts Council's strategic plan for 2011-13 remains the primary operational strategy for the arts in the State. Within Cork, our funding of the arts is now virtually on a par with that of the Arts Council. Our funding per capita is among the highest provided by any local authority in the country. The arts plans we develop are produced without guidance from central government, unlike city or county development plans. County and city development plans should take account of zoning for arts superstructure in the same way that they account for zoning for housing.

In Cork we have enjoyed a great deal of political and executive support for the arts. However, should priorities change, the council will have no obligation whatsoever to maintain these funding levels. It is at the discretion of the local council and its members, as is the employment of key staff to continue to operate the arts programmes.

Local authorities can efficiently deliver art strategies to combat disadvantage and encourage greater integration and social inclusion within local communities. We urge the committee to support us in this endeavour. We have demonstrated the considerable impact that can be made by the arts in local communities. All of us in local government have learned, to our cost, that housing provision and planning alone are not the solution to building sustainable communities. The solution is much broader and the arts comprise a pivotal element thereof. Local government can teach central government about this type of policy. We can teach the lessons we learned on the ground.

Policy must be developed that encourages the engagement of local communities in the arts, and funding for this must be prioritised. The core of this programme must be excellent arts practice. However, we need the support of the State through policy and funding. Ireland is a country steeped in the arts, but for many of our citizens these words still do not hold their true meaning.

Local government is the most relevant and appropriate mechanism available to central government to achieve sustainable communities through arts. There is a wealth of ideas, considerable innovation and a proven track record at local government level, particularly in our arts offices. This is very good news for central government, which must make community arts provision as pivotal to local programme delivery as local authorities have made it, by happy accident rather than statutory commitment.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

I thank the delegates for their excellent presentations. I appreciate their coming here to share their experiences. I noted from a number of the organisations the diversity of the services being delivered across the country on small budgets. I also noted that much of the energy of the various organisations is spent trying to find funding from all sorts of areas. FÁS offers funding to some and others find money wherever they can and must tailor their programmes to fit the relevant requirements. I know what that is about because I am involved with a local community theatre. Considerable energy is lost in this activity. How might the fantastic projects around the country be converted into programmes? This is the challenge.

Could the fact that primary schools are so challenged mean a professional company such as Graffiti could be of great benefit to primary schools in other counties? Has the company had time to think about this or is it totally engaged with its own county? Could its model be rolled out in other counties?

It was stated there is no coherent strategy for the development of the arts to target disadvantage. Should guidance come from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht or from the Arts Council, the Department of Education and Skills or the Department of Social Protection? The suggestion to have somebody from the local authorities on board is a good one. This has arisen before and will wind up in our report.

I asked previously whether being called an "arts officer" is enough. I have considerable respect for the arts officers across the country. The work being done is second to none, much of the time on a shoestring budget. Much of the work is done not because the job requires it but out of passion. What is in a name? "County officer" certainly does not have the same ring as "county manger". Would the "arts officers" consider being called "arts managers"? Might this give them more status among elected representatives or others with whom they engage? I am not saying they would be getting an increased salary.

Reference was made to the county development board. Why is this model not such a good idea? Some believed it was good and others did not. What are the views of the delegates on that?

The delegates are singing my tune regarding the value of arts in society at every level. If we make an adequate investment, which will be challenging, we will reap the rewards by keeping people out of prison and keeping people well and healthy. They will be able to contribute to society because it is ultimately a question of quality of life.

Mr. Robert Seward

The development of a national strategy would require the involvement of the people doing the work. We have been doing what we do for 20 years. We have a lot of experience and I am sure there are others like us around the country who would like to be involved in strategy development.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

Who does Mr. Seward envisage leading the development of the strategy? Would it be the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht?

Mr. Robert Steward

Yes.

Ms Valerie O’Sullivan

With regard to funding mechanisms, it is very unproductive to have staff in Graffiti and other such organisations applying to five or six organisations to get one project off the ground. If one were to calculate the cost to the State, one might conclude there has been no cost-benefit analysis or that the benefit is a very long time coming.

On the question of how funding should be rolled out, and by whom, there is no better placed conduit to assess what is happening on the ground than the arts office in the local authority, which operates most closely with community arts projects. There is no point in reinventing the wheel in that regard. We are vetting the relevant organisations and their projects all the time and that is why they do or do not receive funding. It is a no-brainer that the local authority arts office, which has already garnered the support of the elected members at local level, should be the one source of funding. If we rubber-stamped projects with a health or education slant in terms of quality, it would rule out much replication and duplication.

There should be a coherent strategy for arts in disadvantaged communities. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government should be the lead Department in that regard and it should work on the strategy through an interdepartmental group, perhaps involving the Department of Health, the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. As the Chairman noted, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has, by default, provided the funding and should therefore co-ordinate the strategy. That makes sense. It is also the Department into which the local authority feeds and the authority is best placed to feed into that strategy, roll it out and deliver it. We are doing this with our arts plans, in any case.

Is being called an arts officer enough? The members must ask Ms Meaney that because she is that officer and might have a view on it. We are particularly lucky in Cork that the arts officer has a very good standing in the city council. We have a cohort of elected members all the time and our former city manager, in particular, bought into the value of arts, not only to the society and the fabric of the city but as a conduit to pull it out of recession. At this stage I do not think it matters what Ms Meaney is called - the credibility is there. However, she might have a view on it.

Why do I not think county development boards should be the conduit? For the reasons I outlined as to why we should be the funding mechanism at local level. The county development boards would have to learn and come to terms with a whole new brief if they were to learn about the arts. If one looks at the strategies from 2002 developed by county development boards the delivery on the ground is quite poor. We are about delivering on the ground and therefore I think there is no better mechanism than having the arts office as the conduit if one is looking to co-ordinate services and funding. Adding another layer through county development boards, which are themselves probably under review as to their effectiveness, is unproductive. That is a personal view.

Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon

We would like to make it clear that we are a regular funded organisation of the Arts Council, which is very supportive and allows us to do coherent planning. I would also like to pay tribute to the previous city manager who had the vision to place us into a beautiful new theatre development. What the committee might consider is some kind of interdepartmental committee. When it comes to children, there is this committee and the Departments of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Education and Skills, Children and Youth Affairs, and Justice and Equality. There are so many organisations engaged, with young people in particular, but I imagine this applies across other demographics as well. One almost needs to map where the funding is coming from, as well as the duplication, or non-happening, of funding. Perhaps a mapping exercise would be of use to this committee in order to see where the funding is coming from.

Chairman

Before I bring in Senator Mac Conghail I have some questions, beginning with Mr. Seward. What is it that makes people walk in the door of the Cork Academy of Music who have probably never been involved in music in their lives? Can Mr. Seward give some indication as to how many of these people have gone on to third level study in music, completed secondary school or studied music at second level with his institution?

I have a question about Graffiti for Ms O'Sullivan and Ms Fitzgibbon. I would be familiar with some of this and I know Graffiti has done some very interesting material in the criminal justice sector with cognitive drama programmes. Is there an issue in that what might be described as disadvantaged areas end up being "artified", at a therapeutic level? Perhaps one of the reasons there is not that sort of conjunction for, let us say, the lady they spoke about who was involved in a project not seeing art in a broader context, is because there is a difficulty with the presentation of some of the artistic engagements they offer. It is part of a module of some youth reach programmes and the presentation is for therapeutic value of the person rather than for his or her aesthetic enjoyment. Should that be examined? I say this to challenge because I believe it should be considered.

With regard to the city council, one of the difficulties in giving anybody an absolute imprimatur as to what is or is not a de facto art organisation in any jurisdiction is that it completely destroys the organic nature of arts groups that have grown up around the country. I would have been involved in what is probably one of the most successful community writers group in the country but back in the 1980s we did not get a bob from the Arts Council. It was the £500 we got from Cork City Council that made us so successful. It was the ability of two or three people such as Denis Leahy and others who knew how to chase money and, more important, knew how to keep a group of people together and operate on a shoestring. One of the resources that local authorities have - the previous city manager, Joe Gavin, offers an example of this - is access to premises, through land swaps and other factors. We have seen this in Cork city with the Wandesford Quay Gallery, Graffiti and many other areas where the city council simply leapfrogged over a problem. Do the delegates have more specific ideas in the area of developing premises? I call first on Mr. Seward.

Mr. Robert Seward

We now have a premises from the city council which will make a huge difference to the area. The Chairman asked how people come to us, and, if they go on to third level, how they get there. People come because we are using music as a tool. I am sure other activities could be used, too, to get people in - coach them in fishing, or any subject like that. Young people want hands-on experience and want to go out and learn something that will give them a skill. The other thing I have learned in the past 20 years is that people want a qualification. They do not do a course just for the sake of doing it but want to get a piece of paper when they come out. We work on that. They do external examinations and get a qualification in music theory and on their respective instruments so they have something, going out. That is how we work.

Regarding getting them to third level, we know that many people, who might not have done so well in music in school will come back to it after a few years out of school. These people are highly intelligent and well capable and music works for them. They see the potential and have seen some of their peers before them going to college so they will work on a foundation access course. We have had people go to university who left school at sixth class. We tutor them some more on their educational aspects and they go on to college. Now we are finding that people are coming to us with the idea that they want to go to college. There is a huge difference between the educational standards that existed in 1994 and those of today. In 1994 we had people who had little more than a primary certificate - some did not even have that. Now most young people who come to us have leaving certificates, have done FETAC courses and so on, and want to go to college. I would say that 25% or 30% of the people in the school at present want to go on to third level.

There is a great need, and it is best to talk about it, to give an opportunity to young people. Until they get the chance they do not realise they have the ability to pass exams. We work all the way through doing internal examinations and the final ones are done externally. People have the intelligence; they just need a break. There are thousands of such young people around the place at present. I am sure the Chairman is aware they need to get a chance. If they do not I would hate to see this country in a couple of years' time when they are let loose. They have no ambition because they have nothing to be ambitious for - where are they going to go? We must give them a chance, some hope of a career and something they can have, hands-on - it need not necessarily be music. I heard from someone in Scotland last week who is giving coaching in angling to young people at risk. It is highly successful and should be taught here. Young people want hands-on experience and do not want to be in a classroom environment with the uniformity of desks. They want to come in and work.

We went backwards with that course in Knocknaheeney. Generally, the requirement is to teach music with theoretical studies first and then with instruments. To get them interested we gave them the instruments first in order to make a noise and then gradually brought them into learning the theory. This worked. Young people will take advantage of an education of this type and will come back to it if they are given something that is hands-on and has a certificate or qualification at the end of it.

Ms Geraldine O’Neill

I am very interested in the notion of "artification" within a project. One major thing I have learned over the years supports the Chairman's comments. Concerning the young people we have worked with in youth reach, it has taken me 15 years to realise that we do not make this area part of the school programme but offer it outside the school. There is no stick or carrot involved. It is an opportunity for them. If they want to take it, they can. We have conversations with them to teach them the language of what happens. The most recent project, which was very successful, was outside Youthreach but placed within the community none the less. They worked on and developed the programme within their community. They came into our Graffiti Theatre and eventually put on a show. Mr. Barrett saw it and might wish to comment on it.

Mr. Denis Barrett

I was delighted to be present at the first performance by six nervous young people. No one expected them to perform at that standard. This addresses the question of how to use the arts to combat social disadvantage. The report, "The Use of Music as a Tool for Social Inclusion", was published by Cork City Council. A better name for it would be "Music as a Hook for Social Inclusion". Drama, sports and other activities are also hooks, but one must consider who one is looking to engage and what their interests are. Music has significant power at that age, namely, late teens and early adults. Their generation could easily become lost to society, given the poor employment prospects for the near future.

I welcome Deputy Corcoran Kennedy's distinction between programme funding and core funding. As a public service agency working in a close partnership with other public service agencies in Cork, if we are to tackle social disadvantage in the urban pockets of which we have most experience, we must identify the organisations that satisfy our top three criteria - track record, track record and track record. Who can do the work and how many of those organisations are dependent on voluntary involvement, such as Mr. Seward's? Core funding must be focused on such organisations to keep their doors open. Programme funding for programmes such as the one to which Ms O'Neill referred can add to organisations' ability to involve new groups, fund new programmes and lessen the chasing around that wastes so much energy.

Ms Geraldine O’Neill

Constant funding allows us to consider what models can be rolled out. For example, I am examining a model now. A part of the conversations on funding concerns how to pass on the learning to make programmes solid.

Ms Liz Meaney

The programmes cannot be activity-based alone, as there must be excellent arts practice at their cores. In this way, they will attract and engage with participants. Large swathes of our society do not engage because they do not believe that they have a right to the State's resources. Many citizens will not walk through the doors of the National Gallery next door because they do not view it as their resource or their right, yet it is theirs as much as it is mine or the members'. By not creating pathways and by denying entry points, we deny people not only the experience of these programmes, but also the experience of all of the State's cultural wealth. This double hit is one of the most frustrating elements of my profession. Free resources are available and should receive State investment, yet people do not view them as theirs.

Addressing this issue requires policy. Indeed, policy has been effective in the past. For example, the public arts policy has delivered large programmes around the country. This central government policy filtered down through local government. This approach can work. Many local authorities operate their own art strategies in the absence of policy. The committee can work on this matter effectively.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

I feel outnumbered. Even the Chairman is from Cork. It is like several quotas.

Senator Cáit Keane

The Senator will be fine.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

I will tread carefully. I thank our guests, whose contributions have been informative. The committee's work is emerging, given that there are several strands involved. Although the Graffiti Theatre is disadvantaged, in that it must look for a number of pots for funding, this only shows that officials in several Departments value the work of the arts in implementing policies in their respective areas. The committee has responsibility for overseeing sports, tourism, the environment and the arts, all of which the State funds directly or indirectly. I will list the Departments that fund the arts again to remind members rather than the witnesses. They are the Departments of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Education and Skills, Children and Youth Affairs, Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Social Protection and Health. Today has shown us how innovative our guests' organisations are in accessing funding from various pots. Doing this does not water down their intention, validity or excellence. There must be some residual policy in non-arts Departments to the effect that the arts are important in delivering their policy objectives.

Although the committee does not control all of the Departments in question, as we come closer to identifying policy issues, we should determine whether there is a go-to person in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, for example, an assistant principal officer over a section, who is responsible for tallying funding and translating central government policy into local government policy instead of - I say this with the greatest respect to Cork - creating independent republics. While such republics could work, there needs to be joined-up thinking across all Departments, as Ms Meaney suggested.

Community employment, CE, schemes are important. Without their existence in the 1980s, many of my colleagues would not be in their current positions, for good or for bad. How important are these schemes to the Graffiti Theatre and Mr. Seward's organisation? We need to bear this issue in mind.

We know of another area that is missing, although it is emerging in the committee's considerations. The research basis is the big elephant in the room. The Knocknaheeney project is fascinating. Mr. Seward referred to his organisation's response to the needs analysis. The programme's outcomes are outlined in table 2. In our discussion with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, which has been engaging in a wonderful project in Limerick city for six or seven years, we noted that it took a while for research to develop. International research is available. Have the Cork Academy of Music and the Graffiti Theatre begun to collate research? Is there an analysis that we as parliamentarians can use? If they are not collating research, what other organisations can we examine to determine best practice? We know how important the arts are and the valuable amount of work achieved at local level. Our guests would not be present otherwise. I have been exposed to much of their work. However, research is missing. I am not looking for numbers alone. The Chairman mentioned that matter at the outset. There must be a way for the committee to develop a recommendation, even if it is only to conduct more research. Research allows us to influence policy and funding decisions at a macro level.

Mr. Robert Seward

We have carried out a serious analysis of the Knocknaheeney programme. I will forward it to the Chairman.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

I beg Mr. Seward's pardon.

Mr. Robert Seward

It was done well. We will start a similar programme in the next five or six weeks. We hoped, based on this analysis, to be able to improve on it again. I will forward the analysis to the committee, if that is agreeable.

Chairman

Is that Donal Guerin's report on social inclusion? I understand it is already with us.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

If we allow local authorities to be represented on the Arts Council we would have to do the same to all other sectors of the arts, including traditional music and theatre. Is Ms O'Sullivan suggesting there is an underlying problem in the relationship between the local authority sector and the Arts Council or is there another reason for her recommendation?

I also wish to ask Cork City Council the same question that we put to representatives from other local authorities, namely, what is its annual arts funding, directly in terms of grants and indirectly in terms of salaries and capital? We are trying to collate figures from local authorities because we do not have a full picture of arts funding.

Ms Valerie O’Sullivan

In regard to the comment on Cork being an independent republic, thank God we are because otherwise Tigh Filí, Graffiti and Triskel would not have homes and Mr. Seward would not be moving into a new home. However, I was only trying to describe the power and relevance of local government in terms of co-ordinating arts policy and funding so that the committee can avoid recommendations that merely re-invent the wheel or add another layer. Thank God we are an independent republic in some ways.

We are anxious that local government would have representation on the Arts Council for the opposite reason to that suggested by Senator Mac Conghail. We have a good working relationship with the Arts Council and the interdependence between the two sectors has grown enormously. It is important that we deliver consistent messages to the organisations we fund. Far from the local authority being the start of an individual genre of representation on the Arts Council, we would capture it all for the area. We interact with the people on the ground who provide music and other genres of arts and culture. That is our value to the council. We can build on that work to inform its decisions on funding organisations that are knocking on both our doors. It would also represent a big step away from the detachment of Dublin from the rest of the country. This remains a factor when people who are based in Dublin decide matters for the rest of the country. It is particularly important for the community arts sector that we effect change in this regard.

In regard to funding, we have a annual budget of over €2 million. Ms Meaney will answer the Senator's question on indirect funding.

Ms Liz Meaney

I will outline the figures briefly and supply more detailed figures after the meeting. Grant aid to revenue organisations totals approximately €750,000. Approximately €70,000 is allocated in bursaries, project grants and arts-in-context grants. An additional €350,000 is programme or indirect programme funding through the arts office and the balance goes through major events funding. There is also funding for staff and overheads. As I do not want to provide figures about which I am not completely certain, I will forward the details to the committee.

We also look for other opportunities to leverage funding. A number of departments use arts and culture to progress other policies. We have a strong relationship with our twin city of Shanghai and have accessed funding for cultural programmes because of that. Two major arts programmes are being developed for the EU Presidency, one with Cork Community Art Link and the other with the National Sculpture Factory and the Vision Centre, which is an EU funded project. We identify policy areas which we can use to leverage additional funding for key State strategies. It might be useful for the committee to consider over the long term how these policies link together and how they make strategic sense at local level.

Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon

I want to answer the question on research. As we do a significant amount of teaching internationally, we have been rigorous in our documentation and evaluation methodologies. The research report on the BEAG project, which is on our website, contains interesting commentary on methodology. The problem we face in doing decent research is finding partners. One cannot, for example, tie in a university without continuity of funding. The search for funding to document arts practice longitudinally is, therefore, a chicken-and-egg scenario.

Senator Cáit Keane

I thank the witnesses for an informative and enlightening discussion. I was particularly interested in the presentation on the Graffiti Theatre Company and the research behind it. Ms Dineen mentioned Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk and the need to get the children early. She also spoke about teaching children from deprived backgrounds. Similar surveys were carried out in America in the 1980s and the conclusions were the same as those of Dr. Zeedyk in Scotland. The Department of Education and Skills has a long way to go in respect of the arts. I was elected to a local authority 20 years ago. Local government has improved significantly in every county in regard to provision for the arts but the understanding of what it does for society can still be improved.

County councils should be complimented on the arts centres and other facilities they provide. Even though I live in south Dublin, I previously had to go into the city but now every local authority in Dublin has its own arts centres and civic theatres. The local authority has to be the place where the arts strategy is implemented. Local authorities are required by legislation to draw up arts strategies but the overall arts plan for the country has to be progressed. Cork became European City of Culture because of its arts strategies. South Dublin County Council also has an outstanding arts officer. Central government could learn from the grass roots. It does not need to re-invent the wheel because everybody can learn from best practice in other counties.

I acknowledge what was said about core funding versus programme budgets but if local governments could raise funds at local level they would have more power to do what they want in the arts rather than being forced to depend on central funding. I am not going to ask the witnesses to answer that question.

I commend the volunteers in Cork on what they are doing in the area of music. Mr. Seward referred to the research being carried on using music to prevent Alzheimer's disease. There is also a huge body of information on education. Children are being branded with ADHD even though they do not suffer that disorder. The study I did was on multiple intelligences and how children learn differently. By including music and movement in arts education, we would see a drastic reduction in diagnoses of ADHD. In America, wriggle cushions have been invented for children to encourage movement because they cannot move in class. It is because of music and movement that some children perform better. They are not dull, but are intelligent. The reason they do not perform in class is that they are being taught the wrong way. We must come around the whole circle to get us back to the way it should be, as mentioned by Mr. Seward and Ms Fitzgibbon. I would like to see that happen. Libraries also do a significant amount for the arts and perhaps arts groups and libraries could put together a strategic plan. Both work under the arts strategy for each county, but they could work together more.

It is because we have different views that committees work well and we can come up with recommendations. I have a different view to that of Senator Mac Conghail with regard to a member of the local authority being a member of the Arts Council. I think this should happen because the buck stops with the local authority with regard to all the groups, Comhaltas and arts groups etc. It is the local authority which brings projects in turn to the Arts Council. I believe every local organisation should feed into the local authority and it can then feed upwards to the central Arts Council. The county development boards were mentioned but these are a voluntary group working without funding. Unless the task is devolved to a group with funding, what can the county development boards do? Where the county development boards went wrong was that they could designate tasks, but they had no control over the groups supposed to carry out the tasks. The structure was bad. Therefore, I agree that the way to go is through the local authorities.

The issue of zoning is important, but it is done in a piecemeal fashion currently. With large developments, like that in Adamstown, local authorities try to ensure there is a provision for the arts and cinema. They are not able to make these provisions in every area, but criteria should be laid down in every development plan for such zoning.

None of the groups here mentioned funding from the European Union. This committee discussed the single creative European programme previously. This programme has €1.8 billion in funding for the arts. I was surprised that the contact detail on this was [e-mail]. I wondered why the local authorities or county development officers were not involved. I had to ask myself who was [e-mail] and how it could bring all these cultural and media groups together. Surely it should be more formal, particularly with such a significant sum of €1.8 billion coming from the European Union. I know the funding is to cover all of the countries in the European Union, but it is a significant sum and every local arts and culture organisation should be seeking some of it.

Senator Ned O’Sullivan

I apologise for being late. I was unable to get here until now, but I followed some of the discussion on the monitor. I am at a disadvantage in being from Kerry. We know that when we are dealing with Cork people, we want to be fully prepared.

I welcome the delegation and I listened with interest to the discussion. I have a background in the arts from experience in the county council and was chairman of the Kerry county arts committee for a number of years in my time as a councillor. I commend the work being done by local authorities around the country in this regard. Significant work has been done in the arts, much of it unsung and low profile. I also commend the various community groups who embrace community arts. It is not so long since the arts were associated with Dublin, with Senator Mac Conghail and the Abbey Theatre, the opera and the ballet. That is fine and it is natural for people to travel from the country to see the big shows in Dublin. However, it is important that we have something for people at local level also.

With regard to breaking down barriers and the arts and disadvantage, perhaps members will have seen a programme on TG4 the other night about a fellow townsman of mine, Joe Murphy, who runs a little arts centre called St. John's in Listowel. Our town is a lively town in terms of the arts, with Writers' Week and a long tradition of literary endeavour. Joe Murphy - a gas man - has been running his little theatre for the past 20 years. He is a small farmer with no pretensions. He has succeeded in bringing people from the most deprived areas of the town and the surrounding area to chamber orchestra concerts and light opera and so on. He works hard at doing this. He works one on one. Rather than have empty seats in the theatre, he picks up the phone and rings a council estate and tells the people he has a great band on that night and the following night and would like them to attend. Some 40 or 50 people will come down to hear the band. They do not have to pay, but it is a night out for them. Joe works hard at that and his method is working. He has offered significant access to a broad span of the arts in north Kerry since he started. I would not tell people how to suck eggs, but he is a guy who should be emulated.

Budget is a significant issue for local authorities because we are all under pressure now and I am sure county managers are trying to shave every shilling they can off the various programme groups. Therefore, it must be a hard fight for those on the arts side and I wish them well on that. One of my concerns was that there was an element of tokenism about the arts for the long time, although we seem to be growing out of that. There was an attitude of, "We must put something aside for the arts", almost like giving a penny to the black babies. We saw a lot of that. When major road projects were completed in past years, for example, a statue or figure of art would be erected by the side of the road. Much of that sort of tokenism was tiresome. I often wondered why that money could not have been provided for a different element of the arts, such as commissioning a poem about the road or putting on a pageant or something. It could have been put into the arts generally. The country is full of these monuments, some of them quite unsightly and many of them are a distraction to drivers and bad for health and safety. I welcome the deputation here and commend them on their work.

Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon

Some of them are being stolen, the bronze ones.

Chairman

They are probably worth more now than when first commissioned. As it is now coming up to 5 p.m., I will bring matters to a conclusion, unless any of the witnesses wish to make a concluding comment.

As I said to witnesses who attended earlier, these committee discussions are part of an ongoing process which will continue over the next couple of weeks. We have not yet decided on what our recommendations will be. As Senators Mac Conghail and Keane indicated, our thoughts are only evolving and we have not adopted a set position. We are aware there is tremendous work being done on a shoestring and that significant energy is being invested in trying to keep initiatives going. We are conscious many organisations face insecurity of tenure. Premises, programme funding and once-off funding make for a mixed bag of problems, despite the good work being done. This committee has responsibility for the environment, local government, arts, heritage, the Gaeltacht, community and transport. However, it gives us access and a connection to the various Ministers and Departments that cover this expansive brief. Therefore, this issue is not one we must write to another committee about. Ms Meaney indicated she would send on further information to us. If any of the other delegations find something comes up during the period of our deliberations, I invite them to do the same.

Ms Valerie O’Sullivan

I would like to leave the committee with another idea which I think is worth exploring. In large urban areas, which is what Cork city is, there are properties under NAMA - I am not talking about housing estates under NAMA - that are probably accumulating derelict site levies due to the council. There are deals to be done in terms of housing arts organisations in those buildings under NAMA if that door was open to us. There are ways in which we can eliminate vacancy and dereliction and house arts organisations in large urban areas. That is worth the committee's consideration as well.

Chairman

Putting on my past VEC and city council hats, the figure in the presentation of 120,000 people in Cork city is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that there are 250,000 people living in Cork city, which is probably a more accurate figure because we have not had an adjustment in boundaries. There are difficulties at a VEC, a Department of Education and Skills and a county level. For instance, the Glen, where Ms Geraldine O'Neill is doing work, is right on the city boundary. There are kids coming from the other side of the boundary. Perhaps we should not only look within the local authority lines, to which the VECs are tied.

I conclude our deliberations and thank the witnesses, Mr. Robert Seward, Ms Anne Marie O'Donovan, Mr. Denis Barrett, Ms Emelie Fitzgibbon, Ms Geraldine O'Neill, Ms Valerie O'Sullivan, Ms Maeve Dineen and Ms Liz Meaney, who appeared before the committee and assisted us in our deliberations.

The joint committee adjourned at 4.50 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 21 March 2012.