JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT, CULTURE AND THE GAELTACHT debate -
Tuesday, 27 Mar 2012

Utilising the Arts to Combat Disadvantage: Discussion

Vice 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: Mr. Conor O'Leary, Artlands; Ms Breeda Fitzgerald and Ms Margaret Fox, South Tipperary Rural Arts Group; Mr. Kevin Murphy, chief officer, Voluntary Arts Ireland; Ms Siobhán Geoghegan, director of artistic programme, Common Ground; Mr. Mark O'Brien, acting director, Axis Arts Centre, Ballymun; Mr. Philip Maguire, deputy city manager, Ms Margaret Hayes, city librarian, and Mr. Ray Yeates, city arts officer of Dublin City Council.

I propose we take the four organisations in the following order: Artlands, Common Ground, Axis Arts and Community Resource Centre and Dublin City Council. I propose we take the opening statement by each of the four groups and members can then put questions to the groups. I request each group to take a maximum of ten minutes for its opening presentation. Is that agreed? Agreed.

By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009 witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to 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 the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses, or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

Before I call on the witnesses to commence, I echo the view of the Chairman, Deputy Ciarán Lynch, who is unavoidably absent, that organisations which encourage people to express themselves artistically are an invaluable resource for all our communities. They are not middle class luxuries but essentials for all, through which the community and the individuals who 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 very important. Society is comprised of many different voices and it is the expression of the individual just as much as the communal that leads to a shared outlook.

Our role today is to consider how public representatives, Departments, agencies and local authorities can assist local groups in their efforts. Our primary objective is to identify how this work can be done more effectively and efficiently. We want to identify whether we are doing all we can in the most cost-effective and efficient manner, and whether we are reaching out to those who need it and adding value to local community involvement and participation. I will be very interested to hear what the witnesses have to say and what suggestions they might make.

I invite Conor O'Leary from Artlands to address the committee. I should add that the Tipperary connection is not the reason for calling Artlands first.

Mr. Conor O’Leary

I thank the joint committee for the invitation to Artlands to participate in this discussion and I express our appreciation to the staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas for their courtesy and assistance. I acknowledge the 50 submissions from interested passionate people who responded to my request for feedback for this debate. People throughout the country wanted the opportunity to have their views heard in the Oireachtas.

Participating in the arts and crafts is fertile ground for creativity and helps people become creative in their own lives, with the bonus that they can bring this creativity to the other groups and organisations in which they are involved. The skills and experiences of living in a vibrant and creative community can lift all else within the community, provided we deliberately seek to integrate all the people who reside there and their respective talents. This is crucial.

We have significant problems in rural areas now. Shops, pubs, post offices and businesses are being lost, with a consequent feeling of helplessness. We need new thinking and local solutions to restore pride and confidence. This can only come about if, as communities, we recognise that creativity is a cornerstone for our personal and community well-being. Once that happens we can harness that creativity in all the other fields of endeavour in society. A creative society is the foundation stone and an essential first step before we can build a creative economy.

As a teenager growing up in east Kerry, I was aware of the rich tradition of Irish music and dance that was part of life in that area. Johnny O'Leary, the great accordion player lived across the road and three miles to the north was the village of Knocknagree, where Dan O'Connell's pub came alive every weekend with set dancing. When I got my first tape recorder, I became aware of a whole world of music and emotion that lit up my world. While I could bring the sounds and lyrics of the bands into my headphones, the idea that any of them would visit my homeplace seemed an impossibility, yet those dancers hopping to Johnny in Knocknagree, the vibrancy of the local pantomime group and the emotions of the bands to which I was listening made the world a brighter and better place. They proved that culture took many forms and all could be rewarding.

Who makes decisions on arts and culture in rural areas? Who decides how it will be utilised to combat disadvantage or to build creative communities? Later, Mr. Kevin Murphy will give a sense of the voluntary arts activity that goes some way towards filling that void. In truth, there is often an absence of local decision making because policies do not reach local community and many people do not realise what is possible or how to begin. We have at least part of the solution. If we harness the power of voluntary arts activity and inspire local cultural decision making, we can bring about an incredible positive social change.

The piece that I bring to the jigsaw is Artlands, a social enterprise which is all about creativity and inspiring communities. This is a response to the cultural and social disadvantage experienced by many communities in the regions. The specific cultural disadvantage experienced in rural areas was documented in the ESRI report, In the Frame or Out of the Picture: A Statistical Analysis of Public Involvement in the Arts. Do members know the report showed that, based on residential location, those least likely to attend arts events lived in small towns and rural areas and that they were significantly disadvantaged as well? The same report also contained a chink of light. It showed that attendances at arts events in community spaces were not affected by variables such as income, gender and social status. I argue that utilising those venues can break down barriers to participation in the arts.

I am displaying a photograph in which one can see a giant African drumming circle in Donard in County Wicklow. It is an example of what I am talking about. This was part of Africa Day celebrations organised in that community in May 2009 by a voluntary group, the West Wicklow Arts Network, who have received funding from Irish Aid. It hosted a series of primary schools drumming workshops and a free headline concert featuring music group Motema from the Congo. It was a sensation. All ages, from toddlers to grannies, made the gig, with a total audience of 300 people. Nothing remotely like it had ever been seen before in the village, and what made it so powerful was the active involvement of local volunteers to promote and organise the event. The network aspect meant that people from the neighbouring villages and towns also got involved. Some 300 people, most of whom would not have seen a concert like this before, socialised and mixed with their neighbours and made new friends.

The Arts Network model and the other programmes on which I work explicitly bring a community development approach to cultural development, and that is what is so powerful about it. When using a community development methodology, inspiring local communities to remedy the situation is an essential part of any sustainable solution, thus enhancing the quality of life, promoting a sense of place and contributing to community, cultural and economic development. Part of this is driven by the simple reality that services are only accessed by people when they are within easy reach. This is increasingly important for people without their own transport and limited resources and incomes.

The experience of those networks has shown that local groups can promote and encourage arts activities with modest financial support but with investment in appropriate training and resourcing. The results have been positive. Communities with which I have worked have organised more than 400 arts and cultural events that otherwise would not have taken place. These have been attended by more than 23,000 people. To date we have worked with volunteers, local development companies, Irish Aid, the Arts Council, VECs and arts officers in 15 counties. Volunteer-led arts networks have been established in Laois, Wicklow, south Tipperary, Westmeath and Limerick. All the projects are based on the following key principles: empowerment, local decision making, reaching out to new audiences and building inspiring cultural communities. These principles are equally relevant in urban areas.

The activities and experiences which arise from these interventions are determined by local people as they respond to what they see as the relevant local needs. Westmeath Rural Arts has been particularly successful at developing participatory initiatives in the community such as the schools workshops shown on the screen. It has also organised digital photography and kick-started amateur drama. Some 100 miles further south in the Ballyhoura region of County Limerick, Mulcair Arts Network plans to break down the isolation experienced by many artists and get artists and communities talking, while the South East Laois arts network has successfully hosted a wide range of touring and arts oriented events.

I invite Ms Breda Fitzgerald, chairperson of South Tipperary Rural Arts Group, to outline its experience as an arts network in the community.

Ms Breda Fitzgerald

I thank the committee for the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. South Tipperary Rural Arts Group is a volunteer-led arts network set up in 2004 under the guidance of the Rural Arts Network. Since its inception, the overall aim of the group is to programme, host and promote quality arts and cultural events in the local rural communities. Covering an area of approximately 20 square miles and including the communities of Ardfinnan, Ballyporeen, Ballylooby, Burncourt, Cloheen, Duhill and Grange, South Tipperary Rural Arts Group has to date co-ordinated and hosted more than 50 events.

South Tipperary Rural Arts group is a self-funding voluntary organisation. The events have been diverse and have included those aimed at opening local communities to different cultural experiences, such as Africa Day, visiting choirs from Wales, and bluegrass performers from the US, to encourage intergenerational projects such as involvement in the Bealtaine Festival, to promote inclusivity and events which appeal to all social classes, such as drama of different genres, to provide a platform to showcase local talent but also to provide accessibility to recognised artists and to cater for a variety of tastes such as Liam Ó Maonlaí, Nóirín Ní Riain and Tommy Tiernan.

The locations for these events have been local community halls, local churches and local hotels. Hosting events locally has helped to enliven communities and encouraged positivity with a realisation that communities can provide for themselves culturally and artistically. There has been a noticeable trend in the local communities of a growing confidence in the hosting of events and the forming of new groups or the reforming of local dramatic societies. It has also given people in the local communities an opportunity to participate in events to which previously they would not have had easy or reasonably priced access, thus helping to combat rural isolation.

There are other benefits to the work of groups such as South Tipperary Rural Arts Group, such as the social, financial and tourist benefits resulting from visiting artists staying in local communities, visiting local attractions and, on occasion, visiting the local day care centre meeting and providing workshops for the elderly; and the empowerment of volunteers by the development of personal skills and abilities to confidently host and promote quality events in rural communities. This has involved the sourcing of artists, providing accommodation, management of funds, the logistics required in hosting events and preparing venues.

South Tipperary Rural Arts Group wishes to move forward and develop its role by functioning as an umbrella group which would oversee a broader network of like-minded groups in the region. Such an umbrella group could act as a co-ordinator, and by linking with and reaching out to other groups and committees, it would allow groups and individuals to learn from each other. It could also give the groups leverage in the sourcing of funding. An overall group speaking on behalf of many other groups in a community would have a much stronger voice. An umbrella group which is accessible could set out guidelines for best practice which may be used by all groups.

Another area in which the group hopes to make a difference is to build on using art and culture in an intergenerational approach, linking young and old. This might be achieved, for example, by living history projects. The ongoing motto - on our doorstep - is to continue to promote arts and culture in local communities, helping to bring colour to the lives of all.

Mr. Conor O’Leary

The photograph on the screen is of Liam Ó Maonlaí when he came to the south Tipperary village of Cloheen. He described the experience as magical. It is testimony to the strength and skill of the groups to host quality events such as that one.

It is important to highlight that the arts networks and the majority of my work would not have happened without the vision and support of local development companies through the Leader programme. They are a significant player in tackling issues of cultural and community development in rural areas. County arts officers have also been involved in funding the arts networks and other groups through the Arts Act grant, where it is available, and supporting smaller projects. However, the resources are limited. It is important to highlight the support I received for two years from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland. Its model of long-term investment and support for projects and individuals with innovative ideas is valuable and recognises that long-term support is vital for maximum benefit.

The committee has heard much about the local and social entrepreneur perspective and Mr. Kevin Murphy, chief officer with Voluntary Arts Ireland, will describe the impact of the voluntary arts.

Mr. Kevin Murphy

It is terrific that we have a burgeoning infrastructure. We have very individual groups that do a lot of good work in their local communities. They tend to do what south Tipperary has done which is form a network. Traditionally, in other places a national development agency is established and Voluntary Arts Ireland has been established here. There are over 5,000 voluntary and amateur groups across Ireland. The main point that we would like to get across today is that they are local and these grassroot groups are local community assets. It is an area that is well worth examining.

We have carried out research with the Third Sector Research Centre on the benefits of grassroot community arts groups. They are as follows: they enhance the health and wellbeing of individuals and provide common ground for social contact that reduces isolation and brings pleasure; they bring people together for a common activity, build a sense of belonging and help to develop social cohesion across class, ethnic and generational divides; they help people acquire new knowledge and transferable skills that can enhance employability; they benefit the local and wider economies through memberships and advertising; they often provide employment for professional artists; and creative expression helps individuals gain greater understanding of themselves. Local communities already have these assets but sometimes they are underutilised, under-recognised or undervalued.

I will outline a couple of statistics that the members might be interested to know. As many as 10% of the population takes part in voluntary and amateur arts. Although the sector is small and individual it is large scale across the nation. Another key fact is longevity. The average duration of many of these community groups is 28 years so they are long-standing community assets.

The infrastructure already exists and across Europe and the UK there are established mechanisms that support the sector. The arts tend to start with small groups but then there are networks such as south Tipperary. They are developed naturally and sustained by the groups and there is virtually no public money used. The sector then seeks a national development agency that will support and advocate on its behalf. In the UK, for example, there is Voluntary Arts in Scotland, Wales and England and similarly across Europe there is an amateur arts sector called Amateo. Such agencies are missing in Ireland.

We have identified that, apart from these community assets being underutilised and under-resourced, the groups are too narrowly focused sometimes. They are basically in it for the arts. Most of the people that become involved in voluntary arts groups do not think about community activism but the next photography club, the next reading circle or the next book or play. That is their motivation. Undeniably there are great community benefits if one enables the sector to flourish. There is not a strong enough network throughout the counties and regions of Ireland or strong enough national representation for the voluntary and amateur arts sector. These are clear gaps.

The infrastructure already exists so the committee has it in its gift to do something about the situation and make the arts flourish. If the committee wants to tackle exclusion and disadvantage then there is no better way than to start in communities that are already doing something for themselves. We should build on that self-help attitude, organisation and desire to live in a better place.

Mr. Conor O’Leary

We have highlighted a number of issues to consider and I will highlight three key recommendations. First, it is time for a radical partnership model. The voluntary arts, the professional community arts and the community development sectors, such as local development companies and social entrepreneurs, must work together. This partnership should act through the voluntary structures that communities have already created for themselves. It should also be replicated in decision making and action in local networks and through county, regional and national level to drive cultural inclusion and share the marvellous and separate expertise and knowledge that exists in each sector.

Second, we should foster a culture of creativity and local leadership. It can be realistically achieved through campaigns and events that support and develop local cultural leadership and maximise arts participation. We should pilot these projects, with the partners mentioned already, in a number of counties.

Third, the importance and potential of the voluntary arts sector should be explicitly valued in policy and, accordingly, be clearly resourced and incentivised separately to ensure that it maximises its impact. I thank the committee for its time and patience.

Vice Chairman

I thank Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Murphy and Ms Fitzgerald for their contributions. I invite Ms Siobhán Geoghegan from Common Ground to address the committee.

Ms Siobhán Geoghegan

I thank the Chairman for the invitation to make a presentation. As members will know, I am Siobhán Geoghegan and I have worked for Common Ground since 1999. The arts organisation is based in Inchicore in Dublin's south-west inner city. Our work is about bringing together communities and artists from the urban villages of Rialto, Bluebell and Inchicore. We build and broker active opportunities for local people and artists to imagine what is possible and to make art together.

Every day we talk to people living in the canal communities, find out what they want and need from the arts and give them advice without taking over. For those people we are a link to a world that is often unfamiliar and inaccessible. We introduce artists to communities that we think will work well together and support people to access and make art on their own terms. One could say that we have paved the way for art to reach the neighbourhood, flats, streets and village.

First, we believe that everyone has a right to access the arts. The reality is that not all things are equal in Ireland and not everyone has the money to spend €30 per week on music lessons, to see a play, receive grinds, go to the movies or buy a cheap guitar for €50. Second, we believe in artists and work with them. We want to work with artists. We want to share their knowledge, expertise and skills and to work in a neighbourhood and see their art flourish and become part of the daily life of the community, rather than apart from it. Third, we believe in the transformative power of arts and culture and that the arts can change people's lives. In 2010 the Australian Council for Education Research cited a US report that tracked children's engagement in the arts for 12 years. It identified them as being more likely to turn up and stay in school, their communication skills improved, their attention span improved, and that young people's regular involvement in the arts meant they were more likely to vote when they grew up. That means active citizenship, more votes and perhaps more votes for members.

We have evidence of the transformative power of arts closer to home. We bring in theatre makers to create cutting edge theatre with drug users. We bring in musicians to help set up a community choir and work in early years education. Youth workers in the Rialto youth project cite young people's involvement in good quality arts programmes as instrumental and not only keep them in school but offers an alternative role model. Of ten adults that were involved in the We're from the Barn drama group's production of the play "Flats' Life" in Dolphin House, Rialto, five went on to become involved in their local community association. As one adult said:

People now feel confident enough to articulate what they are thinking. It is a progression for people making decisions about what happens in their community.

That would never have happened before.

There is something about ownership and confidence that the arts does to the human spirit. The evidence is that our work changes negatives into positives. While culture can be a strong and subtle force of change, we are concerned about how the benefits of the arts are distributed across society, especially when the communities that we work with are often excluded from the act of viewing or producing arts and culture.

What are the key things that one needs to do to make sure that people in disadvantaged communities benefit from the arts? From our experience, there are five realities and they are: time, mushrooms not parachutes, relationships, artists as role models and money. With regard to time, to see real benefits one needs long-term exposure whether it is to the arts, community development, youth work or school. When we started Music for Me we had 16 children in one after school club, now we have more than 120 in five different communities. Time was, and still is, needed to see how music can transform young lives and offer choices. It is important to grow ideas and innovation in partnership with communities and not to land on top of them. Studio 468 in St. Andrew's Community Centre, Rialto, is a good example. Since 2003, 17 artists have been resident in the studio making art directly and indirectly with children and young people, isolated senior citizens and drug users - all the people who make up this country. One artist created a community garden in a disused car park in 2006. That exists and thrives today. Another artist who recently finished his residency was once a young participant from the Rialto Youth Project in a visual arts residency in the studio in 2005.

With regard to relationships, we do not do this work in isolation and we have cultivated two kinds of relationships to make this happen. The first is with community groups, residents associations, youth projects and individuals. We do not make people participate in the arts projects. It is not school and they make an informed choice. They see something in the arts that they want and something that makes them feel better or be better. When they make that choice, we are there for the journey. We work hand in glove with many sections of Dublin City Council, community, youth and voluntary organisations and development agencies. We are linked to communities and we often fulfil their objectives.

I refer to artists as role models. It is important to have good artists in community projects. When young people have a consistent creative relationship with a talented artist, they start to believe in their own creativity. It is the same effect as the local hurling star making the county team. He or she is an inspirational future but one who can be easily accessed in one's own community.

The final ingredient is money. While we do not need a lot in the great scheme of things, we still need money to make this work. The communities and groups we work with are struggling and the reality is they are in crisis. Schools are struggling to pay bills, as are many of the children's parents. Common Ground is struggling to continue making an impact while on reduced funding. The reality is our funding has halved in the past three years and, because of this, access to programmes has reduced. Children are waiting to join our Music for Me programme and artists' residencies are shorter. Time becomes lacking, which is the vital ingredient to ensure the integration and success of community-based art work. It is also ironic that, as an organisation committed to ensuring cultural access, we find ourselves disadvantaged by ever-diminishing resources. It is like blowing at the embers of a fire to keep it glowing without a good stock of coal. I have to devote more time and energy to find funding to make sure local arts and cultural partnerships can survive and so that we can meet local people's expectations. We do not own an expensive building, we do not have a big office and we operate on the ground. We are here all the time. We go to where people are based and live and we go into communities to integrate over time.

What can the committee do to ensure the arts deliver in disadvantaged communities? We believe we need artists on the ground. Local authorities and community groups often do not have the time, expertise, capacity or relationships to run these programmes. We want members to increase local authority funding for the work of community-based arts organisations such as ours. In our experience, all community-based organisations provide good value for money. We operate with one full-time staff member, two part timers and we contract artists on a project basis. Our Music for Me programme, for example, costs €25 per child per month in order that children can access and develop a passion for music alongside top class professional musicians, composers and singers. That is value for money but if we are going to ensure access to the arts, it needs to be funded properly.

We want local authorities to think differently about how they invest in communities and we want more departmental support. We grew out of a visionary joint application between Dublin City Council's arts office and the Canal Communities Partnership in 1998. It was called the Local Centenary Government Award celebrating 150 years of local government and that seed funded our early work. In 2005, the housing and community section of the city council was enlightened enough to invest €70,000 in us over three years. The combined effect of this funding was that we leveraged support and other funding from the corporate and public sectors. Bodies such as the Arts Council saw us as playing an active and positive role in the arts and companies such as Accenture partnered with us for a further three years. We were able to invest and expand programmes for the long term. We were able to curate and install a project called Tales from the Promised Land.

We need more of that vision and lateral thinking from local authority sections and interdepartmental interaction between the Departments of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Education and Skills, Social Protection, Health, and Children and Youth Affairs. They need to recognise the value of the arts in helping them reach their goals. Funding for the arts in these contexts needs to be protected. It is a long-term investment and organisations such as ours are here for the long game. We want members to keep asking us for advice and we want them to talk about art in the community. We are delighted to share our perspective. We see the changing needs on the ground and the changing issues. We want to talk to the committee regularly to keep members updated. If they like, they can visit us and learn, understand and invest in what we are doing.

All of us want to have a right to be invested in in our own place or community. Ireland has a tradition of being good at that and of having a sense of home and community. Some people translate that into less crime, vandalism or graffiti and more civic pride. To get there, people have to be allowed to feel and think about where they live. Participation in the arts can activate that. It is not just a Dublin issue. Almost 50% of Irish people live in urban environments. Common Ground works in Dublin but, to its residents, it is Rialto village or Inchicore village. At the heart of it all, Ireland revolves around the village. We are parochial; it is our strength and it is our weakness but it is always that sense of place.

Culture cannot resolve all the inequalities. The arts are not a Band Aid and it is not our job to keep society together when everything else is fractured but what the arts can do well is tell the stories, realities and diversity of Ireland. Arts and culture can be integrated into everyday life. We, and other organisations like us, can ensure the arts are here every day to help us gain a better sense of our place, our community and to be one of the sum of the parts that makes us a living, breathing society. Just as we in Common Ground have invested in the canals area, making sure that everyone gets equal access to the arts, we now require the committee's commitment, help and investment for positive change to take place.

Vice Chairman

I thank Ms Geoghegan for her presentation. I call Mr. O'Brien.

Mr. Mark O’Brien

On behalf of the board of Axis, I thank the Chairman for his invitation to address the committee as acting director of Axis. Located at the heart of the newly emerging Ballymun, Axis is an arts venue, production company, arts development organisation, community resource centre and home to a range of community development organisations. It is our experience, over more than ten years, that engagement between local people in an artistic project of excellence and inclusion, properly facilitated and well managed, produces results beyond all expectations, engaging in cultural activity can change people's lives and placing the arts and the community side by side, where the community becomes an arts resource and the arts becomes a community resource, can lead to long lasting effects in both contexts.

Investment in participation in arts and cultural practice is an investment in community. Investment in the arts and participation is an investment in the future. The creativity needed to navigate through the problems and issues of social disadvantage, to connect and to integrate can all be developed through participation in quality arts practices. This is one key area of Axis's work. How does a centre work with the community? This is where the strategic alignment between arts and community practices, local authority and Arts Council, resident and visitor has resulted in Axis becoming a space to not only hold creativity within but to facilitate a culture of creativity in Ballymun and the wider north west area of Dublin and be a resource both locally and to the wider city.

In the recent public consultation undertaken on behalf of Ballymun Regeneration Limited, a question was posed about why arts and culture were important in Ballymun. The top four replies were: it changes both the internal and external perception of Ballymun; it brings people together; it provides young people with positive activities; and it increases confidence and self-esteem for individuals and the community. The top four areas of importance can be seen to have a much wider social resonance than artistic, and exemplify how investment in arts and culture practice in communities can have wide ranging effects. This report also highlighted two areas in which Axis carried out work locally and nationally in recent years. The first is the vast majority of people recognise the need to work with young people to build confidence and self-esteem, to raise aspirations about potential careers and training opportunities, to help divert young people from anti-social behaviour and to provide high quality arts experiences to them. There is widespread support for the integration of arts and health models to help address increasing levels of poor mental health in Ballymun, resulting from drugs, alcohol abuse, unemployment, poverty and other social issues.

A project worth noting is Invent, a collaboration between local schools, youth services and the health service in 2008. This multi-agency approach saw statutory bodies and the voluntary sector bringing their distinctive characteristics to the process. It was funded through dormant accounts funding in the area of suicide prevention and worked for five months with up to 80 local teenagers. They were able to explore their emotions through song, poetry, rap and prose. The results were astounding from an artistic and developmental point of view.

Their work was published in a book and they performed a concert at the end, but the real results of the project are still manifest in the area and in our work practice four years later. A number of young people have continued writing. When another valuable local programme, the Ballymun Music Project, was developing "Ballymun Lullaby" it came to us looking for young people to write the libretto to the music. There was a clear artistic and professional pathway for young people to develop their talent and careers. One young person has gone on to work with Headstrong on a national level.

At the heart of this work is the facilitation of self-expression. Self publication is also important. This journey is the cornerstone of arts development and can be the glue of social integration and inclusion. Being given the space to express oneself and to hone that expression to perform, write and record is at the heart of our arts development work, and is also at the heart of how we view synergies with pathways out of social disadvantage.

Axis grew from local people's desire for an arts and community space and it is these desires that we now serve. There is a desire to see a space emerge where people can come and explore their creativity and, therefore, themselves, become engaged in their artistic practices, be challenged by work they may not have seen before and understand the work ethic that underlies the bridge from creativity to the arts, that is, a space where they can also become fired with the idea of potential that can affect every aspect of one's life.

The pursuit of excellence, learning, real engagement and change is key. It is the aspiration for the creation of something new, clear, engaging and dynamic that feeds all the development work and creates the roadmap for our journey. The exploration and discovery of shared aspirations is what gives our work in the arts the excitement that charges it.

The sense of pride, place and ownership that can and has developed is astounding. The arts not only gives freedom to explore but also gives responsibility for the outcomes and the journey. This sense of pride and ownership is palpable across our work, from our staff, to the young child reading his or her story on the Axis stage, to the award winning work of our touring theatre companies and in the welcome given for international visitors.

This pride of place is hugely important in these contexts and is about the inclusion used by Axis in the development of all its work, be that a world premiere of a new Dermot Bolger play featuring local actors, to local playwrights getting space to develop their work, to a local artist recently installing a ten year retrospective of his work. This pride of place is also tenable in the fact that we have developed projects with and brought residents of Ballymun to South Africa, USA, Poland and Belgium among many others.

In May 2012 Ballymun will host the Acting Irish Festival. Over 50 Irish Americans will travel to Ballymun to perform throughout a week long amateur drama festival. This is of great cultural and economic value for Ballymun as visitors from cities all over America will stay locally and be entertained in Ballymun every evening. As this is the first time this festival has left the United States, it is a very important time for Axis and Ballymun.

There is also pride in the completion of a piece of work. I cannot overestimate the value of the work ethic in the context of pathways to integration and inclusion. At some stage just turning up is not enough, one must be actively engaged in the arts process to reap the awards and be part of the final outcome. This process is completely transferable into the wider social environment. The arts is not alone a place of creativity but can be a crucible of change, argument and discussion, but most importantly a place of shared goals.

None of this work would be possible without the core funding received from Ballymun Regeneration Limited, BRL. This continued investment has allowed Axis to develop its work locally and attract interest nationally and internationally. It reflects BRL's recognition and championing of the arts as a tool for regeneration. Investment in the arts is not seen as a single focus activity but enables cross-cutting responses to a range of societal issues. The vision of Axis as a centre for excellence with the community at its heart has seen our work studied and we have received invitations to attend and-or speak at international conferences, most recently in Sweden, USA and Serbia.

Investing in the arts at a local level is critical to building inclusive communities. The arts is a safe space where social contexts need not be important and where the making of something new together can and does have profound effects on the individual and wider community's wellbeing. The strategy and work of BRL and Dublin City Council in their collaboration and partnership with the local community in the development of Axis has developed not just a sustainable but a replicable model.

This funding and investment has helped us develop into an organisation that has a full and part-time staff of 38 with dozens more hired annually on a short-term project basis. Axis is a major provider of employment locally. All areas of Axis have local people working in their local centre. This is social integration in action, that is local people working alongside people from other communities and backgrounds towards a shared objective, namely, the supply of quality arts, culture and community provision to the area. There are also pathways of career development in the Axis staff, such as moving from receptionist to operations manager or from café worker to café manager.

Local authority investment in arts and culture and the strategies surrounding it are investments in local communities, not alone in the arts. Axis bears this out profoundly as it is not just an arts or community resource centre, rather it is seen as the beating heart of Ballymun while also standing as an invitation to the wider city and country to come and visit. The initial investment has brought in a wide rainbow of funders to our work including the Arts Council, Pobal and Foras na Gaeilge. These partnerships are key to the sustainability not just of Axis but to the community it serves

We are not alone in this work; we work with a wide range of arts organisations from all over Ireland and internationally. The model of excellence and inclusion on which the organisation has been developed and founded has seen a space develop that is a hub of engagement, innovation and potential that has given not just Ballymun but the city a huge resource for the development and incubation of new and innovative utilisation of arts and community practice.

The marrying of arts practice and participation and sustainable development is at the heart of our work, and is the driver to its success and the extended reach it has in the community of Ballymun regionally and nationally. It is a process that engages with and facilitates people and organisations, and explores and develops their creativity, commonality and differences towards a common goal. It has seen us develop work in the arena of social employment and new areas of social entrepreneurship, social integration and inclusion, all underlain with the pursuit of excellence and inclusion within our arts practice.

The public consultation by Green Hat undertaken on behalf of BRL states:

It is not possible to overrate the importance of axis as a major community resource. It is a major contributor towards local and regional policy development across a range of important social issues, whether anti-poverty, positive cultural expression or economic generation, and in an area which has long suffered an ‘image crisis', it provides creative, positive leadership and generates civic pride.

In these uncertain times continued investment in organisations and spaces such as Axis are vital, as not only can they clearly show value for money across a range of different contexts but they exist as agents of change and development. Further partnerships between organisations such as Axis, the local authority, the Arts Council and other arts and community organisations could see not only new mechanisms of social integration and inclusion being developed through arts practice but new forms of arts practice emerge.

The sustainability and indeed growth of organisations such as Axis is crucial for the strategic and sustained work of building and maintaining the social fabric of the communities they serve. Funding or investment in these organisations creates huge value for money in a wide range of artistic, cultural, business and social outcomes.

I again applaud the level of importance the social regeneration of Ballymun is given within the wider work being carried out there, the acknowledgement of the significance of the role played by arts and cultural activity in urban regeneration and the importance of Axis's role within this as the infrastructural centre for arts and culture in Ballymun and through this as a resource to the wider city.

Vice Chairman

I thank Mr. O'Brien for his opening statement and look forward to members' comments on it.

Mr. Philip Maguire

I will be very brief and will ask Mr. Yeates to elaborate on what I have to say. The key issues are quality, participation rather than passive receiving of the arts - someone described it as mushrooms rather than parachutes - and a cultural fit to the community. In other words, it is important that it be an organic process. Participation in the arts works best as part of a larger cultural jigsaw which includes education, sport, environmental awareness, health and active lifestyle issues.

The city council's current budgets for 2012 are set out in the document. Libraries have been allocated €18 million, while €14.25 million goes to sport, €18.5 million to parks, €5 million to the arts and €1.15 million to events. This amounts to a considerable sum of money, making the council a big player. Partnerships with a vast array of both amateur clubs and groups and professional groups and institutions - hundreds, if not thousands in all - are essential. We generally find that there is a virtuous circle of community schools and clubs ensuring sustained exposure to sport, arts and culture. The key word is "sustained"; it is not something into which one can drop in and out.

Distance and public transport issues are not as great a problem in Dublin city as they are elsewhere in terms of access to the arts. Nevertheless, there are invisible barriers to participation in that there are large swathes of the population who rarely or never partake of the arts. Research points to much lower participation rates in poor areas, with the opposite being the case among wealthier communities. Dublin City Council manages several arts centres, myriad sports centres and hundreds of pitches and parks. My colleague, Ms Margaret Hayes, the city librarian, oversees 23 branch libraries throughout the city. We see these libraries as arts and culture beach heads within local communities.

For Dublin City Council, it as a question of ensuring a balance between the provision of facilities, promotion of activities and encouragement of audience-building and participation by local communities. My colleague, Mr. Ray Yeates, may wish to comment further.

Mr. Ray Yeates

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh, as ucht an chuireadh bheith anseo inniu. Is mór an onóir dom bheith ag labhairt anseo. Go raibh maith ag na Seanadóirí agus na Teachtaí freisin as mé a bheith i láthair. I do not intend to deliver a long statement. Tremendous contributions have already been made which reflect all our values. I will make some brief comments on the use of language and the types of experiences about which people are talking. There is a significant difference between arts practice, arts participation, voluntary arts and professional arts. We have seen an understandable confusion among the public as it approaches arts practice and arts participation in the community.

As I set out in my submission, community development is essentially an orientation rather than an activity. An engineer can be involved in community development, for example, as can a doctor. When we talk about the arts in communities, we are not talking about the arts in general. Rather, we are referring to those artists and arts organisations which have development as an orientation. An art gallery is probably not as interested in an artist's development as it is in his or her sales. That is about the professional delivery of an artist's craft and skills. On the other hand, a young adult, older person or community member who attends an arts class can expect to encounter teachers who are interested in his or her development as a person and less interested in the question of one's development as a professional artist. This is a very different orientation than is normally the case when it comes to the arts. If one is involved in funding, one might have to consider, for example, whether currach making is more important than arts classes. Building currachs might well be seen as an arts activity, but it is probably more a cultural than an artistic pursuit per se. Having said that, such activity might succeed - just as a drama class for older people might succeed - in bringing together people at risk of loneliness and social isolation.

The key factor in all the submissions is the importance of emotional intelligence. It is not just about our knowledge of the arts or our skill in the arts but also our ability to connect, make people feel welcome and recognise where an individual has a vocational problem or a difficulty in communicating. We all remember the great school teacher who had that communicative ability. It probably does not matter which subject those types of educators teach; their students will succeed because of the teacher's ability to communicate. The qualities of emotional intelligence include empathy, sympathy, flexibility and assertion. In regard to the latter, if the standard of arts provision locally is not high, we are merely patronising the community. All of the submissions observe that at a certain point, one will have to practise the dance piece for the 57th time if one is to achieve the required standard. There is, however, great resistance to crossing that barrier because to develop the self-esteem to go that far requires great inspiration. It is also a little mysterious. Simply providing the programme and funding does not necessarily guarantee anything but the output.

It is not merely outputs that we are discussing, by which I refer to the number who took a particular class, for instance, or the number who completed it. It is, more importantly, about the outcome, where there is a change in the imagination of local people. Imagination is entirely inclusive, being something we all have. The arts have no claim to being the only place of creativity and imagination, but they involve, by definition, the use of creativity and imagination. There is no way of getting involved in an arts activity unless one is prepared to use one's imagination. As Frank McCourt tells us in Angela’s Ashes, once we stock our mind we can “move through the world resplendent”. Once we get that idea, we are at the beginning of changing who we are. In considering the options that present and how we might be assisted in pursuing them we are already using our imagination. That is where the arts can make a difference to those who are poor - by giving them back what they already have, namely, their imagination.

It is important to welcome all of the approaches laid out in the submissions and value each of them. However, we must recognise that some are more costly than others. It will be expensive, for example, to have professional artists involved locally. As a child I spent so much time in Capel Street Library that the librarian finally told me I had to move on to the adult section because I had read all of the children's books. A local library is important because it allows one to see people reading. It might take a person a long time to gather the courage to go in and borrow a book, but the facility is available. It is a tremendous example to everybody that, throughout our lives, it is possible to continue to learn.

Vice Chairman

I thank Mr. Yeates and Mr. Maguire for their contributions. Before taking questions and comments from members, I compliment all of the delegates on the quality of their submissions and the passion of their delivery. Their in-depth presentations will be of great value to the committee in its deliberations. We will take on board the comments and suggestions they have made.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

Bhain mé an-taitneamh as na bronnaidh a tugadh dúinn. Bhí siad go hiontach. My experience is largely with the Axis arts centre, St. Helena's family resource centre and other facilities in my own area of Dublin city. There has been great progress in the arts in Dublin, particularly in the north-western part of the city. It has created a huge buzz in areas such as Ballymun where the arts centre offers a broad range of grassroots activities. For many years people looked on the arts as exclusively the domain of the well-off. Projects such as these have brought the arts to local people and there has been increased participation by young, working-class people.

What is most evident in all of these services is the quality they deliver and the fact that those who participate are enjoying themselves. These activities have created a great social buzz. This type of participation enhances people's outlook and helps to prepare them for life beyond the areas, with their huge social problems, in which they were born. I have seen the evidence of the effectiveness of a broad range of projects, whether dealing with graffiti, maintaining community gardens and so on. A recent project, in conjunction with St. Canice's school, involved recording the history of the old graveyard in Finglas. These activities are making an immense impact. I commend Mr. Maguire, Mr. Yeates and Ms Hayes for the work they are doing in Dublin city.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

I thank the delegates for their excellent presentations. A common denominator in all of the presentations we have received to date is that many of these fantastic projects are being run on a shoestring. The commitment and passion of those delivering the various projects and programmes are what drive them forward. While a lack of funding is undoubtedly an obstacle, what is pushing things forward is the passion of those involved. I agree completely with the comments about community development being applied to cultural development. I have practical experience of this approach. There will always be ways and means found to deliver projects of this type. However, there is cause for concern in that too much time may be spent identifying those ways and means rather than delivering the projects. In that regard, will Ms Geoghegan indicate how much time her organisation is obliged to spend in sourcing funding when it could be delivering programmes? In her submission she mentions that she has experienced the interdepartmental approach only once. Will she expand on what she means by this?

Will Mr. O'Leary outline how Artlands is funded? It is an initiative one would like to see being implemented on a broader scale. I understand the organisation is targeting certain counties, but there are others which would value its input.

The work being done by the Rural Arts Network sounds fantastic. Does the group include any salaried employees or is it composed entirely of volunteers? How does it raise funds?

The delegates must be very good financial managers to attract people like Liam Ó Maonlaí. Will they indicate whether Voluntary Arts Ireland has a strategy for connecting with groups across the country or if it is done on a more ad hoc, loosely connected basis? Will Mr. Maguire clarify that Dublin City Council is the chief long-term funder of Ballymun Regeneration and the Axis arts centre?

Deputy Sandra McLellan

I thank the delegates for their very informative presentations. Reference was made to the importance of voluntarism in promoting and organising events. What I have always found in my local community is that it is generally the same volunteers who are involved in all of the various community groups. How do the delegates encourage people to volunteer and is it difficult to do so? Is there cross-Border co-operation within their organisations? What engagement do they have with local schools and community groups and do they see scope for development in this regard?

Lack of funding is undoubtedly an obstacle to progress in this area. How do the delegates see matters progressing? One of the campaigns in which I am involved concerns the promotion of the arts and sport to combat mental illness. Does any of the delegates intend to launch a campaign based on that theme?

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

I welcome the delegates. For Ms Geoghegan's information, I will not be looking for votes. The fact that I was nominated by the Taoiseach means I am not courting for votes. One might call this a disability, a hindrance or perhaps a freedom.

I will not go over the points made by colleagues. The delegates' presentations have been very informative, Mr. O'Leary's in particular. He has painted a wonderful picture of what is happening in east Kerry, of which I was not aware. Mr. Yeates has made the point that arts practice, heritage, tradition and the professional arts can live shoulder to shoulder. In saying this he is hinting at something we all experienced in the 1980s and to which we do not want to return, namely, our experience of the politics of funding splitting the arts community. Everybody in this room is a member of that community, yet there is a notion that everybody is competing and that one group has a monopoly on the word "excellence".

What Mr. Yeates has described is important, that is, the process of making work. He has referred to orientation, while I speak about process, but we are saying the same thing. The process of making work has a value and excellence in itself, with the outcome being of lesser importance. Mr. O'Leary has made the same point - that participation is as important, if not more important, than the end result. We must be careful at all times not to set ourselves one against the other.

Mr. O'Leary spoke about a radical cross-sectoral partnership model. Has he seen or researched an example of where it worked as a bottom-up approach? The sports partnership model is one the arts community might examine in that context. Will Mr. Maguire comment on the gaps in getting the message across? As someone who has stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Yeates and others as part of this campaign, it is clear to me that one of the gaps is the lack of research and empirical evidence. Is it enough for us to say the arts are good for a person? We have international examples that this is so, but are there national examples? If not, is anything being done to address this issue? I am particularly interested in Ms Geoghegan's remarks in this regard. She mentioned an international scenario, but I am interested to learn whether she has empirical evidence relating specifically to Ireland. One of the things we are seeking is information on the evaluation of participation, if there is such information available.

In regard to funding, Ms Geoghegan, Mr. O'Brien and Ms Fitzgerald are great examples of how we in the arts community are brilliant at getting funding anywhere we possibly can, bending over backwards to secure it and tweaking applications. I have mentioned in previous meetings that securing arts funding can involve making submissions to one or more of a range of Departments, including the Department of Education and Skills, the Departments of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, the Department of Health, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Is there a stress point in the delegates' work in this regard?

Will Mr. Yeates clarify the statement made in his submission that the city manager has called for a "new cultural strategy for Dublin, of which an arts plan will form a central pillar". What is the difference between a cultural strategy and an arts plan? I apologise but I must leave the meeting for a vote in the Seanad, after which I will return. As they give their answers, the witnesses should not consider my absence to be rudeness.

Vice Chairman

Quite a number of questions have been asked and comments made to which the witnesses may wish to respond. Mr. Conor O'Leary may begin.

Mr. Conor O’Leary

I thank members for the questions. As for Deputy Corcoran Kennedy's question on how Artlands is funded, it is a social enterprise. It is based on an entrepreneurial spirit and is my livelihood. Effectively it is a business, one of the key goals of which concerns social outcomes, that is, about transforming communities and changing the society in which we live. The majority of its funding is project-based and as I mentioned in my submission, a large amount of this funding has come from local development companies to which proposals have been made and which have identified particular needs within their respective regions and areas. County arts officers also have been highly supportive and another important element has been the input of the VECs. As the VEC community education programme has been the mechanism through which I delivered a series of courses called "Inspiring Communities", that also has been quite important. I also mentioned the support I received from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland over two years, which was extremely valuable to me. These are the main ways in which the work is funded. I also tap into bodies such as the Arts Council through its touring awards to fund various projects and initiatives.

This creates a quite challenging difficulty. In the same way that Ms Geoghegan and the others must seek funding, a considerable amount of my time is spent researching potential sources of funding and making project proposals. It would be fair to state that in some ways, social entrepreneurs are a new beast on the scene in some respects. Some of the existing funding mechanisms are slightly challenged by their existence and are uncertain how to relate to them or how they fit within the current ways in which funding is disbursed.

Deputy McLellan was referring to the South Tipperary Rural Arts Group, which can speak about its own experience of sourcing volunteers and the associated challenges. However, any successful and long-lasting voluntary group must recycle and recruit and work hard on retaining volunteers. It also needs that turnover of people for new ideas and new enthusiasm. I found research conducted in County Clare to be interesting in this respect. I refer to a report commissioned by Rural Resource Development entitled, Relying on the Few. It was a study of volunteering that picked four communities in County Clare and examined the experience of volunteering therein. This research was carried out in the context of people suggesting there had been a great fall-off in volunteering. In reality, the study found that 40% of the population was engaged in volunteering, which is a remarkable figure involving huge numbers of people. The vast majority of those people described it as being a positive and rewarding experience. Significantly, 55% of that cohort of people who volunteered did so in sport, which has been tremendously effective in creating pathways for people to volunteer and in harnessing volunteers. I note Mr. Christy Cooney and his team from the GAA appeared before this joint committee recently. That organisation is a marvellous example of this phenomenon and there are others. On the arts and culture side of things, the figure for volunteering was approximately 15%. While this still constitutes a significant number of people, it is considerably lower and there is amazing potential to grow the numbers engaged in such volunteering work.

Deputy McLellan also referred to engagement with local schools and community groups. They are an essential part of communities and any group worth its salt knows that if one brings in the children, one will bring in the parents and the grannies as well. This is at a practical level, but in addition, one reaches in to such communities in respect of education. A significant point is that while assumptions now are being made that the school system has improved to such an extent that each child will have access to X, Y and Z, this is not the case. In my own volunteering capacity as a youth club leader, I was involved with a group of 17 teenagers, with whom we put on a variety show. I was astonished to discover that only one of the 17 had been on stage previously. These teenagers were 16 or 17 years of age, all were in secondary school and all having gone through primary school as well. This is a stark statistic and is the reason I will always encourage the groups with which I work to engage with schools as well.

Senator Mac Conghail made reference to not splitting arts funding and I acknowledge there have been negative experiences. However, challenges exist. Voluntary groups by their nature may not always be resourced to do the kind of legwork or to invest the kind of time and energy that professional organisations can in terms of finding funding. A practical example is that a number of years ago, the Arts Council ran an initiative called The Touring Experiment, which pertained to coming up with a policy for touring. A significant amount of money was made available and any organisation could apply to run a tour around the country. In theory, there was nothing to stop any voluntary organisation from applying for that funding. Somewhere between 70 and 80 tours were organised, of which one was explicitly targeted at voluntary and community promoters. That application came from me and the other arts networks with which I work. Consequently, it is important to have funding that is at least targeted at the voluntary sector and is made accessible to it. Otherwise, there is a danger that they will not be able to tap into or reach such funding and one must be conscious of that. Moreover, there are examples in areas of the United Kingdom, in which rural touring schemes specifically target rural communities and encourage touring to those areas. In other words, this is not a unique concept.

Senator Mac Conghail also referred to partnership models and I had talked about partnership and practical examples.

Vice Chairman

I apologise for interrupting but perhaps Mr. O'Leary might wait, as the Senator may return.

Mr. Conor O’Leary

That would be perfect.

Vice Chairman

Some of the other witnesses may prefer to respond now.

Ms Margaret Fox

The South Tipperary Rural Arts Group is a voluntary organisation that has no paid staff. In response to the question on volunteers, it is difficult and we do not have a good turnover of volunteers. We appear to have difficulty in recruiting new volunteers and some are probably leaving the group. We do get schools involved. For the Africa Day event, we held a drumming workshop and we also run junior drama, the participants in which put on a concert. Consequently, schools are very much involved with us. The only funding we receive on a yearly basis is €400 from South Tipperary County Council for rural arts. We received funding for the Africa Day event through Irish Aid and also received funding from the Arts Council through The Touring Experiment. We work on a very tight budget and must work out the sums before getting the artists involved.

Ms Siobhán Geoghegan

Quite a number of questions were asked and I will respond first to those from Deputy Corcoran Kennedy. As for the amount of time I spend fund-raising, in recent years the organisation as a whole has spent a lot of time so doing. We try to look at ways to make our work more public in order that people understand what the work is. I spend at least three days per month looking at funding and considering alternative routes to funding. The Deputy also asked me a question about the interdepartmental funding. Common Ground grew out of an application for funding made to the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF, in 1998. It was made because one of the last partnership companies to be formed in Ireland emerged in the Inchicore-Rialto-Bluebell area. Consequently, a piece of research called 2020 Vision was undertaken, which sought to sustain short-term arts programmes or arts activity that had happened for many years. Some members present may have experienced some of this work, some of which took place in collaborations between the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the local family resource centre in Inchicore and which had quite memorable impacts. Other work took place in Rialto, where an organisation called Wet Paint Arts worked with the Rialto Youth Project. It was an attempt to create sustainable opportunities for people to engage in arts and culture making. The aforementioned interdepartmental funding emerged from the 2020 Vision research, which was sitting as a report with Dublin City Council's arts office at the time. The local government award came around that time, celebrating 150 years of local government. The arts officer of the time and the workers in the area-based partnership put together an application, and Common Ground won £125,000, which seed-funded the organisation for the first two years. From that we were able to leverage other funding from bodies such as the Arts Council. This is the mix of funding to which the Senator referred in how good it could be at a particular time in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The City of Dublin Youth Services Board managed the funds from the young people's services and facilities fund for rounds 1 and 2, and we were recipients of that funding as well.

Much of our funding is quite mixed and we were working in local authority areas where there was a high percentage of public housing and areas undergoing regeneration, such as Rialto, Dolphin House, Fatima Mansions and St. Michael's, which is a failed public private partnership. We were trying to support people in accessing arts and culture with that background. As a result of the award, we were able to go back to the housing and community department of the council and argue that we achieved the objectives and that it should invest in us as an organisation for a period when we work in different communities.

There was a question of whether we work in schools but our funding does not really permit us to work there as there is one allocation of money for community youth projects for those young people most at risk and mainstream youth services. We have a small pocket of separate funding and we started working in the local primary school, bringing in a music programme. Common Ground started as a social economy model and it was seen as such through that funding from the European Regional Development Fund. It is a social economy as it brings benefits to the community and has an exchange between what happens between the artists and groups on the ground.

It fulfils the remit but we are also concerned that artists have a right to earn a living in Dublin, where it can be difficult to live and work. It can be hard to keep artists interested in that space in a developmental role or challenging different types of participation. We look to ensure they have a living, which is a reason we set up Studio 468 in St. Andrew's community centre in Rialto. With it, artists can have a nice space in which to work and local people are able to access them and make work with them.

With regard to research, there is a mountain of evaluation and research done by many community projects to approve performance indicators and social outcomes around community development and arts practice. One of the recommendations of the National Campaign for the Arts was that we prove how people access arts and culture and benefit from that. The only issue I can take is that this sector tends to do much of that evaluation work, which may not be shared. In other words, it could be done and put on a shelf. The question is how to get that information out, which is a big challenge. I remember recently attending Dublin City Council's consultation process, where one of the recommendations was that that kind of research could be housed so that people could see it and have it analysed. We are not all sociologists or researchers, nor have we all the capacity to analyse the figures, impacts and outputs.

The reality is that much of the research is of a qualitative nature, and some of what interdepartmental bodies may seek is quantitative, so a balance must be struck. It is really difficult to describe, even in this space, 13 years of work in ten minutes. One can imagine how to describe how we really feel about engaging and how that transforms people on a personal level. It is very difficult to do this in a small report.

Vice Chairman

Mr. Murphy was going to comment.

Mr. Kevin Murphy

There was a question of how we interact with voluntary groups and the plan for doing so. We try to get more people participating in the arts. We get those individuals to form groups, which we see as a very sustainable model. We also recognise that such people may not be great at connecting with the wider communities, so we help to broker connections for those groups. We do that successfully across the UK, and the example here is in Northern Ireland, where we have significant funding from bodies. We provide information through weekly news that is relevant for groups, social media platforms, etc. We also do direct capacity building for the groups. We are not in the business of starting groups or getting in their way but rather empowering groups.

In Northern Ireland we have field officers who visit groups and help them, based on their need. A group comes to us with a particular need, which is usually in the practical area rather than related to art. It may relate to how to set up a group, market it or get funds. We provide very practical advice and guidance, and it is a programme which runs successfully across the UK. It is not run in Ireland because there is no specific funding for it.

We advocate on behalf of the sector. We send news and information across Ireland, and we do some national campaigns, including the Epic Awards, which celebrate excellence in voluntary arts. There were two terrific winners this year, with one from Phibsborough's Phizzfest, and the Ballymena Arts Partnership in Northern Ireland was runner-up. We also have the voluntary arts week, launched this year, which is a national initiative to give voluntary arts a platform.

The plan I am talking about has full bells and whistles in Northern Ireland but is a bit more ad hoc in the Republic of Ireland. We deliver all of this in partnership so we have connections with the likes of Artlands. In Ireland we have combined with Create Ireland to do a national conference earlier in the year. We do things in partnership here and in Northern Ireland, with a range of partners to help us deliver. We seem to be reasonably good at working in partnership, which is another key element. That is part of the answer to the cross-Border connections, which are obvious as our organisation is an all-island body. There are not many of those so we provide a nice opportunity.

We have done quite a lot of work in Northern Ireland with the GAA and the Church of Ireland in a joint volunteering project. That goes back to the idea of the importance of volunteerism. Connecting through sports or community development is quite interesting and, as I mentioned, we already work with the GAA and the Church of Ireland, which seems pretty diverse on the face of it. It is interesting that these elements are the three pillars of life - sports, faith and the arts - and people do much volunteering in those areas. Formal structures of volunteering tend not to look at those areas because most people in the arts do not consider themselves volunteers and do not think about the community benefit. They are involved in the arts because they enjoy it. There is, however, clearly a benefit in looking at this aspect. The idea of having diverse networks and creating partnerships across perceived divides could be a positive way of approaching this issue.

Vice Chairman

I thank Mr. Murphy. Would any of the representatives of Dublin City Council like to respond? Mr. Yeates was asked a specific question about the cultural strategy as opposed to the arts plan.

Mr. Ray Yeates

I would prefer to have answered the other questions rather than this specific question but I will show courage and try to grasp the nettle. This refers to the statement in my submission about the use of language. I work in the arts section of the culture department of Dublin City Council rather than an arts department. A definition of the word "culture" includes many areas which are not regarded as arts, for example, sport and recreation. We now step into a difficult area by asking why people feel comfortable with the word "culture" or with being involved in cultural expression, perhaps locally, without being aware that they are engaged in the arts, while feeling uneasy or uncomfortable about the words "arts" and "art"?

Dublin City Council is required to have an arts plan under the Arts Act and I could hide behind that if I so wished. However, a cultural strategy for Dublin would be a united strategy, one which would be inspired by the Belfast strategy. I am highly impressed by what is happening in Northern Ireland where Belfast City Council, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, various arts institutions and organisations and members of the public got together to develop a cultural strategy for the city. That would also be our vision. The city manager has asked if it is a plan for the city council or a plan for the city and he would like it to be the latter. This will require great courage, positioning, negotiation and, above all, humility on the part of the city council, which must approach everyone and ask what if we worked together to achieve certain things for the city. That is the difference between a cultural strategy and an arts plan.

On the idea that local people feel comfortable, not everyone feels comfortable in approaching the arts, both for good and bad reasons. Achievement in the arts requires the type of seclusion associated with Wayne Rooney. As I stated, the child playing football in the corner is very close to Wayne Rooney whereas I am not sure people attending arts classes or participating in the arts feel an equivalent proximity to mainstream arts practice. Demystification of the arts, without dumbing it down, is one of the values of Dublin City Council.

Mr. Philip Maguire

With regard to Senator Mac Conghail's question about hard research, I am not able to cite hard research that establishes that arts and sport are good for one and contribute to community development. As was noted, it is a case of arts for the sake of the arts and sport for the sake of sport. People are involved in arts and sport because they enjoy their participating in them while the other aspects are by-products of being involved in the arts. Being involved for the sake of the arts or sport helps raise the standard and makes the activity real and genuine as opposed to a Kentucky fried type of activity where one says, "Here is one I cooked earlier, it will do."

I was speaking earlier with my colleague Ms Margaret Hayes about gathering research and I will ask her to speak about libraries being a repository for online resources and having something that could be brought together. Anecdotally, one could say that those who come before the courts and the prison population tend to be from communities which research shows have a much lower rate of participation in sport and arts and so forth. Some people may believe that the more leafy suburbs are less represented in institutions such as the courts and prisons than they deserve to be, although that is another story.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

Mr. Yeates is correct that the challenge for those of us in the arts community is to demystify the arts. It is easier to get by in sports for the sake of sport whereas there is still an inferiority complex associated with the arts or explaining or being emotionally attached to art for art's sake. Demystifying the arts is a challenge for the arts community and one which the committee must support.

Research shows there are many by-products of sport in areas such as obesity, mental well-being and clarity towards additional learning - the phrase "fit body, fit mind" applies here. However, we still have to find a language for the arts and qualitative and quantitative research is needed. We cannot do without one or other type of research. If somebody is attending an arts event or contemporary music event attended by ten people, it is just as valid as other processes. How do we find a language and meet the challenges? Libraries are excellent resources for this aspect of the research. Is the library off Henry Street-----

Ms Margaret Hayes

The Central Library.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

-----in the remit of Dublin City Council?

Ms Margaret Hayes

Yes, it is.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

That library is an extraordinary success story which needs to be told. People have access to free books and they want to maintain that access.

Vice Chairman

While Senator Mac Conghail was in the Seanad for a division, Mr. O'Leary kindly agreed to wait until his return before addressing his query. He will respond when Ms Hayes concludes.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

I thank Mr. O'Leary.

Ms Margaret Hayes

On research reports and so forth, significant research has been done in this area and a number of reports have been published internationally. One of the issues we could examine is how we create more ephemeral material or reports that are made to funders because people often couch their reports or research in terms of what the original funder wanted and the information can be private and not open for public sharing. Perhaps we could assume the role of bringing together research reports to share them and obtain value for other agencies and the joint committee. Senator Mac Conghail referred to the Central Library in the ILAC centre, which provides access to a large number of research materials. Our ambition is to provide a new city library for the capital which is adequate for the needs of all citizens, students and visitors to the city.

We heard about the difficulty of fund-raising and access to resources. I remind everyone of the significant network of public places that the public library network provides. There are more than 23 libraries in Dublin and more than 300 nationally. These resources are available to communities and are sustainable in the sense that they are publicly funded and supported by professional staff.

Deputy McLellan referred to programmes on mental health. The Deputy may be familiar with a library programme which began as a pilot project in Dublin known as "Books Can Help". This was a co-operative programme between the Health Service Executive, north inner city medical partnership and the library service. Under the programme, doctors and professional psychologists recommended reading material for people suffering from mild mental health issues. The books in question are provided at public libraries, initially on a prescription basis. This bibliotherapy project has opened up and is now a national policy available across most of the library services. While some in-depth evaluation of the service was done initially, it is obviously a sensitive area because clients may wish to borrow particular books in private. Depression, eating disorders and phobias were the main areas of concern and the topics discussed in the books most people are borrowing under the scheme. Members may be interested in the programme.

Mr. Philip Maguire

To add to Ms Hayes's remarks and respond to Senator Mac Conghail, the Central Library just off Henry Street, which is colloquially known as the ILAC library, receives more than 2,000 visitors per day. If one multiplies this figure by the 300 days it is open, one finds it is visited each year by a approximately 1,000 more people than the population of Dublin. This is a phenomenal number of visitors to a single institution which covers a floor space of approximately 20,000 sq. ft. As Ms Hayes noted, we are hopeful that we will provide a facility that will at least double, if not treble, available space. We in the city think it would be a great 1916 commemorative project.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

Join the queue.

Mr. Philip Maguire

I know. I am ahead of the Senator. Borrowing books is one of the lesser activities we do there. Our new citizens are learning languages and computer skills there, borrowing music or viewing art. As the original sponsor of public libraries once said, it is the university for ordinary people and it is still playing that role.

Mr. Conor O’Leary

I picked out three things from what the Senator said. The first is about the splitting of arts funding. I feel that even though organisations like the Arts Council have been very supportive and there are other institutions which provide arts funding, it is not always a level playing pitch for voluntary arts groups in terms of accessing that funding. The second thing was about the partnership model, and the Senator gave examples of that. I saw that model as something that is working right through all the structures. For example, at a local level, Common Ground is bringing artists and communities together. The arts networks in which I have been involved in setting up were a partnership between the county arts officer, the local development company and myself. Ballyhoura Development Limited in County Limerick has a good working relationship with the county arts officer in the Limerick county arts office. They try to co-ordinate their efforts, but that is challenging as well because there are barriers to such organisations funding projects together. That can get in the way of much good work. It does not appear to me that there is any formal arrangement in the country for cultural inclusion whereby those agencies sit down and jointly agree a strategy.

The third thing is to say that models are innovative. They will be ground-breaking in many ways here, which is why the models may not be as readily apparent. The Senator mentioned the sports partnership model. That is very interesting. It has a particular goal and target involving the increased participation in sport. It is very clear and it is resourced. There is a development officer who gets out there and gets people moving, as it were. There is a lot to be said for that. Mr. Murphy might be able to identify some more examples of partnership in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

In respect of the issue of hard research by Voluntary Arts Ireland, the voluntary sector is at a disadvantage. The voluntary groups themselves are not resourced to start compiling evaluations, but an organisation like Voluntary Arts Ireland has great research which is powerful and is contained in the detailed submission.

Sometimes people talk about outputs and outcomes. In the social entrepreneur world at the moment, much of what we are talking about is that we need a new kind of rigorous evaluation where we look at things over a long period of time and see how people's lives have changed. It is important to recognise that.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

I thank the witnesses for their detailed responses. I am curious about the Voluntary Arts Ireland proposal that there should be national representation for the voluntary arts sector. Where do the witnesses see that representation? Do they see it at Arts Council level or local government level?

Mr. Kevin Murphy

Traditionally it has been the remit of the Arts Council and Departments which have responsibility for the community and voluntary sector. In Ireland, it is like everything else; we decide what way we would like to see it. I like the idea of the partnership model because I do not like the idea of separating things. We are involved in an art ecology here. It would be natural for it to be in the Arts Council, but that would require a significant policy shift on behalf of the council. It is currently not on its radar. It might be more natural if the representation rested with the Department responsible for the community and voluntary sector, and then in partnership with bodies that have strong representation with the Arts Council. That kind of approach would be very good in Ireland. We do not want to set up something that is unsustainable and has no real effect. It would be much better to do something from the ground up.

There is great experience across the network in voluntary arts that we can now borrow. I think we should resource Voluntary Arts Ireland, but the other way to go would be to resource a partnership in which Voluntary Arts Ireland is a partner. That is another way to look at it. I do not know in which Department it would fit. My impression is that is would be a big policy shift for the Arts Council, but it would be quite natural for it to be in the Department that is responsible for the community and voluntary side of things. The Deputy can take her pick on which one would work. Does that answer her question?

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

Yes.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

Mr. O'Leary spoke about the Leader programme and the local development companies as being an important form of delivery. We have had presentations over the past month, some of which have been very critical of the lack or absence of companies containing people representing the arts sector. Most of them proposed that somebody from the arts should be on those local committees, although one group did not. What is Mr. O'Leary's comment on that?

Mr. Conor O’Leary

Is it that there should representation on local development companies from the arts sector?

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

The county development boards.

Mr. Conor O’Leary

It probably would not do them any harm. I am not sure the county development boards are the right vehicle for this. There is an explicit target within the Leader programmes and the social inclusion programmes that deal with exclusion, cultural inclusion, quality of life, and social and cultural provision. It makes sense that those programmes would target those issues. I am not so clearly aware of that being a strong principle of the county development boards, but the speakers here from the city might be in a better position to speak about that.

Mr. Ray Yeates

There is a definite conflict in values between the GAA model of the arts, which is what most people are alluding to, and what we really have, which is the IRFU model of the arts, where we have a strong professional class achieving excellence on the international stage. I do not think the connection to community is strong enough between the professional class of artist and the voluntary arts. That is really what the voluntary arts groups are talking about. It is a different value when we talk about those who want to achieve on the international scale and those who want children to participate in the arts. Solving that conflict in values will make the change for us locally.

Vice Chairman

Go raibh maith agaibh. That concludes our consideration of this topic. Is that agreed? Agreed. I thank all the groups for attending here today. Míle buíochas le gach éinne. It was a very well-presented briefing to our committee and our members will appreciate it. I also thank committee members for their courtesy, consideration and contributions.

The joint committee adjourned at 4.30 p.m. until 2.15 p.m. on Tuesday, 3 April 2012.