JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT, CULTURE AND THE GAELTACHT debate -
Tuesday, 17 Apr 2012

Utilising the Arts to Combat Disadvantage: Discussion (Resumed)

Chairman

Before we begin, I draw attention to the position on privilege. By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the committee. However, if directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against a person or an entity, by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. I take this opportunity to advise witnesses that the opening statements which they submitted to the committee will be published on the committee’s website following 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 commencing with the presentations, I should point out that over the past few months the committee has met with various stakeholders in the sector. It is appropriate therefore that today we are joined by representatives of the Arts Council, which plays a central role in this area. We have also gathered extensive information on the issues involved and I look forward to hearing the views of the State agency which is one of the central players in the sector. In the witnesses' opening addresses and in discussing the issue with the committee today, I remind them that their role is to consider how public representatives, Departments and agencies and local authorities can assist local groups in their efforts, in addition to giving their own views from the perspective of their agency. Our objective is to identify how this work can be done better in the most cost-effective way. Who are the people we most need to reach out to while adding value to community involvement and participation, and balancing access, quality and excellence?

Ms Orlaith McBride

I thank the committee for the invitation to address it on how best to utilise the arts to combat social disadvantage and to increase social inclusion in local communities. The best way to do this is to set out what the Arts Council does in its partnerships with Departments and State agencies and then bring the committee through our recommendations.

I am the director of the Arts Council and I am joined by Ms Monica Corcoran, head of local arts. Her role is to work with local authorities to develop the arts at local level. Ms Gaye Tanham would also work at local level, particularly with agencies that work with children and young people, and has a remit to look at education. Ms Orla Moloney is head of participation and would work with groups representing those who are marginalised from the arts by disadvantage, disability or age.

The Arts Council is the Government agency for the arts and it is our job to fund and develop the arts in Ireland while offering advice on the arts to the Oireachtas, as we see here today, and to other State organisations. Like many other bodies, we must contextualise our financial situation. We face formidable challenges. In 2008, we had around €85 million to invest in the arts, with a staff of 65 and a significant infrastructure of venues, arts centres and organisations throughout the country. That was structured to be sustainable when we would reach funding of €100 million, the level at which we had costed our strategic development in 2006-07. We do not need to tell the committee that the resource levels available to us have gone in the opposite direction, as they have for many organisations. In 2012, we will invest €62 million in the arts, employing a staff of 45. We must contextualise the capacity State agencies have to deliver across a broad range of needs. We are trying to do more with less, and to achieve this we have focused rigorously on outcomes. We must be able to demonstrate these outcomes are a return on the public investment. We have had to be smarter and more strategic in our approach than ever before.

We have listened to the committee's discussions in the last few sessions and are encouraged by the level of debate that is taking place in this room and by the contributions from the Chairman and other members on addressing disadvantage through local authority arts funding. We are delighted to be able to set our stall today.

The Arts Council understands its remit is to promote and develop the arts, which includes the supporting of public access and participation and ensuring such access is for all sections of the population. We are aware that numerous historical, cultural and socioeconomic barriers to full public access to the arts have long been in place and that individuals and communities are vulnerable to exclusion due to their backgrounds in areas such as levels of educational attainment, health, disability, age, and ethnic and cultural diversity, factors that can contribute to isolation.

Provision for the needs of those individuals must be strategic. It must be addressed through policy and resourcing measures at national and local levels. Such measures can prioritise educational, social or economic disadvantage. This approach has been outlined in various reports on the arts by the ESRI and the NESF, as well as in our own report, The Public and the Arts, which was published in 2006. For all these reasons, the Arts Council takes a nuanced approach to social inclusion. We act on our own initiative and in partnership with other key agents and agencies, such as local authorities.

The Arts Council has developed award schemes and development programmes to address cultural disadvantage and its many causes, which span artists in residence in youth work, schools and prisons. Schemes supported by the Arts Council from within its arts participation policy will be expanded upon by Ms. Maloney where we fund work that addresses different sorts of disadvantage.

Ms Orla Moloney

When we look at social inclusion and exclusion, we look at its complexity. There is not one broad reason but many different reasons people are excluded from mainstream arts provision. Over recent years, we have focused a few different areas where we could work intensively, such as arts in health, disability and cultural diversity where obvious blockages prevent people from engaging in the arts. Some of the programmes, schemes and projects include the artist in the community scheme, which we have protected in recent years, even with the downturn. That scheme is very important because it enables groups across a range of contexts, be they older people, those with a disability, people with health issues, those from a different cultural background, or communities that are socially and economically disadvantaged. It gives an opportunity for those groups to work intensively and collaboratively with an artist. That is an important scheme that is managed by Create, which allows a range or projects to be funded every year.

One of the projects in the area of socioeconomic deprivation involved an artist who worked with pigeon fanciers in Ballymun before the towers were demolished to commemorate life within the towers. They spent over a year working intensively to look at people's hopes and dreams when moving out and starting a different kind of life in the area. The groups can be local and involve an interest like pigeon fancying, rather than taking Ballymun as being a generic community because there are different groups within. That is how we plan our work.

In arts and disability, KCAT in Kilkenny, a Camphill Community, is an example where we set up an artists' studio programme and an artists' theatre programme. Through that there is now a collective of artists with learning disabilities who make and present work locally, nationally and internationally. It is well established and their work is exciting, innovative and presents an alternative and interesting set of work that we may not normally see. It is not just about inclusion and equality. It is also about the invigoration of the art form.

The artists in prison scheme is one where we work in partnership with the Irish Prison Service. The scheme is managed jointly the Arts Council and Irish Prison Service and enables artists to work with people in prison as well as with the teachers involved in the prison education programme. A key point is to make and present work.

We also have a very extensive programme in health, perhaps one of the unseen areas, where people experiencing health difficulties and using the community health services are excluded from engaging with the mainstream arts infrastructure. We have a well developed programme in the field of arts and health, both mental and physical, linked to hospitals as well as community health services, be it in day care or residential care services.

Ms Orlaith McBride

These are examples of the partnerships the Arts Council has with the agencies of the Departments of Justice and Equality and Health. We also fund and support projects by the Departments of Education and Skills and of Children and Youth Affairs. We work across Government to ensure there is a partnership and that the Arts Council brings its expertise to its dealing with a range of agencies.

The most significant partnership we have had in the past 27 years which has underpinned the long-term policy objective of the Arts Council to increase public access to and participation in the arts is our relationship with local government, notably the local authorities. In 1985 the Arts Council initiated a regional development strategy which brought local arts development directly into the remit of local government. Prior to that, it would have been fair to say that the Arts Council was "Dublin-centric", with the exception of its emphasis on touring around the country. However, there would have been very few festivals, venues or arts organisations outside the greater Dublin area.

Twenty seven years ago, the Arts Council began to get involved in local communities, ensuring that the arts became part of local government and part of the life of the citizen. That was a transformative experience in terms of developing a national arts infrastructure.

My colleague, Ms Monica Corcoran is head of local arts and that includes the relationship with local government, and in particular with the local authority arts officers.

Ms Monica Corcoran

Ms Orlaith McBride referred to the very deliberate strategy initiated by the Arts Council 27 years ago, to embed arts knowledge and expertise in local authorities, recognising them as the agencies for local development. It was based on the principle of subsidiarity. The Arts Council incentivised the creation of the arts officer post and as Ms McBride said this has had a transformative effect on the cultural landscape of Ireland and it is evidenced today by the presence of an arts service in every single local authority area and at least one Arts Council funded venue, many of which were developed by local authorities. We in the Arts Council regard this as the core national infrastructure for the arts. In this context we view the local authorities as our equal partners in providing for and developing the arts at local level. It might be interesting for members to learn about expenditure, which is evidence of the level of partnership. Under the heading Arts Council Funding outside the Dublin city area, one will see that Arts Council funding in 2011 amounted to €26.7 million and the local authority funding outside the Dublin city area was €25.6 million. One sees the equality between the figures down through the years. If members wish, I can give the figures for previous years, but it is probably not necessary.

We in the Arts Council strive to ensure that the funding at local level complements the local authority investment in the arts in each county and city. This happens in a number of ways. The local authority arts services are funded through a direct annual funding scheme and much of the work that is funded involves arts interventions with a variety of different publics that includes people who are socially excluded or disenfranchised. For example, the national delivery of the Bealtaine programme, working with older people, is a programme in which practically all local authority arts officers engage. It is also funded as a core national organisation through the Arts Council, which means it is supported on the double. Let me give another example, Tipperary North and Tipperary South County Councils work with the broader Tipperary Library Service and have put on an extensive programme of activities, for the past four years, with up to 80 events last year for older people. More than 2,000 older people were involved, and many had the opportunity to participate in workshops.

I am aware that a number of arts services have appeared before the committee and outlined what they are doing. The Arts Council identifies common areas which it funds, for example arts in schools, which is provided mainly at primary level to schools which are disadvantaged; arts work in health care settings; arts in disability, early years arts with young children; and youth arts. Youth arts is a significantly major area of arts provision. A few years ago, the Midlands Arts Services got Manchán Magan to do an issue of their collaborative publication about youth arts provision in the midlands. It was incredible to see the level of opportunity there is for young people to engage with the arts through youth film, dance, drama, visual arts and literature.

We give annual funding to the venues that have been developed by local authorities to engage and develop new audiences for the arts. We fund large-scale and small locally developed arts festivals through our small festivals scheme. We try to incentivise shared resources and cross sectoral collaboration through initiatives such as our local partnership scheme. This scheme has had a cultural diversity in the arts strand and there is an interesting project that Ms Moloney and I are involved in with South Dublin County Council, where they are doing research with Dublin City Council on artists from immigrant and new communities in those areas. Some very exciting things are happening in that context.

Ms Orlaith McBride

That is an example of how direct funding can impact on the arts at a local level, particularly in the local authorities. As the expert State agency for the arts, one of our core functions is to advocate for the arts and to work strategically at local and national levels. We work strategically with the Association of Local Authority Arts Officers to develop capacity in particular areas, such as public arts, strategic planning, the arts and disability and so on. We regularly meet the County and City Managers Association through a management liaison group, which was established in 2009. This group has been a focal point of communication and exchange between the Arts Council and local government policy and strategy developments in respect of local arts provision and development. The Arts Council has recently established a similar forum with the directors of community and enterprise network. There is a recognition that there are opportunities for local authorities and the arts services to work co-operatively with and tap into both social inclusion and economic development. We have undertaken to met regularly officials from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. We regularly met Mr. Des Dowling, who is the assistant secretary with responsibility for local government. The common goal is to preserve the infrastructural development that has been achieved as well as the invisible arts works that happens in a range of setting on a day to day basis. Many of these are so invisible that we need to ensure it continues to happen.

We need to collect better data on what we do and highlight the social and economic dividends of the arts. That is why it is very important that we work with the County and City Managers Association as well as the Association of Local Authority Arts Officers to ensure there is co-operation and collaboration on data collection. We need to identify better ways of utilising and sharing local resources. We need to be aware, anticipate and plan for change so that we can respond to the effects of the public sector embargo and developments arising from the recommendations of the local government efficiency review group regarding shared services and the future merging of local authorities. We need to work better with local agencies, such as rural development companies, Leader and so on, to ensure the wider cultural agenda is captured.

In spite of all of the achievements we have outlined, we are very aware that access to and participation in the arts remains a significant challenge. In addition, significant groups of people remain excluded from artistic and cultural life. This issue can only be effectively addressed as part of a coherent, integrated, cross-departmental approach to policy in the areas of the arts, culture, heritage, education, health, justice, equality, the environment, community, local government, children and youth affairs, etc., with each sector bringing its own specialist and specific expertise, priorities and financial support to the table.

To remain within the parameters of the question put to us by the Chairman when the joint committee kindly invited us to this meeting and to respond to deliberations of various meetings of the committee, the transcripts of which we have read, the Arts Council proposes to conclude by setting out a broad range of recommendations, after which we would welcome an opportunity to engage in a discussion with members.

Our first recommendation is that social inclusion should form an integrated part of local authority arts plans. The converse of this is equally important, in other words, the arts should form an integral part of planning and provision in local authorities' social and community programmes and initiatives. Second, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and his Department should act as advocates for greater liaison between social inclusion units and local arts service providers so as to better achieve outcomes and a more equitable paradigm of arts provision. Third, in any reform of local democracy and local government the arts and access to the arts for all should be key to the mandate of public service design and delivery locally. It is important to have this type of integrated departmental collaboration and central government should make a more explicit recognition of the arts as a core local authority service and area of provision. While the Arts Act 2003 obliges local authorities to have arts plans, no such provision features in the Local Government Act. A correlation between both Acts is required.

The Arts, Cultural Inclusion and Social Cohesion, a report produced by the National Economic and Social Forum in 2008, recommended the establishment at assistant secretary level of an interdepartmental committee spanning all Departments, including those with responsible for health, education, the environment, the arts, justice, young people, etc., to ensure greater integration across all aspects of government. This recommendation has not yet been implemented. Its implementation is one of the key recommendations of the Arts Council for creating a cohesive approach to the development of this area. These are our four primary recommendations. We would welcome an opportunity to discuss them in greater detail.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

I acknowledge the presence of a former County Kildare arts officer. Society is changing and it is no longer easy to define particular areas as excluded from a financial point of view. Notwithstanding the issue of home ownership, in many cases everyone but the person living in the home owns it. Have the definitions of the terms "social inclusion" and "social exclusion" changed as a result of economic developments? People can feel very isolated in areas that are perceived to be socially excluded.

There is a strong desire to measure things in economic terms but it is difficult to measure things that are intangible. Does the Arts Council have a uniform method of measuring outcomes that is applied across the country? In my area, an arts programme was developed following the suicide of a number of young people aimed at getting people to talk to each other. It is difficult to envisage how it would have been possible to get young people to talk without developing such a programme. Another good example was a programme developed in an area with a significant graffiti problem aimed at encouraging offenders to use their talents in a more productive way. The outcomes of such programmes can be measured because they are tackling a particular problem. This is the reason I draw attention to them.

Ms Orla Moloney

Taking the first question on the changing environment and measuring exclusion in a completely different landscape, this is where the comments made about taking a nuanced approach fit. It is recognised that within any area there are many different people who are included or excluded in different ways for different reasons and at different times. That is the thinking behind supporting communities of place and interest in order that people can self-identify within their communities, for instance, in the case of a community with a particular interest in suicide. Interestingly, we have been involved in recent years in a number of projects by youth and adult groups which were developed in response to the increasing incidence of suicide. There is scope for this within the way in which we measure exclusion and inclusion. We are encouraging groups and communities to identify themselves and look at what is their interest in coming together to make or present work.

At local level, measuring is integral and important in the context of the artist in the community scheme. We have spent a great deal of time creating and managing the scheme and developing opportunities for groups which secure funding to do a project to participate in training in the area of evaluation. The first thing the groups do is set their own indicators because it is important to do so. Participants need to identify what it is they are seeking to achieve, both themselves and the artist who will work with them. If this is up front from the beginning, the groups will have an opportunity to measure how much they are achieving in terms of where they want their project to go. Instead of having a fixed measure for each group, we encourage the development of each group's capacity to articulate for itself what are the aims and objectives of its project.

Ms Gaye Tanham

To add to Ms Maloney's point, the same applies to all the youth arts projects with which we are involved. It is a case of people measuring and identifying indicators. In the youth arts area a mix of socially driven and artistically driven outcomes are being attempted. What the Arts Council, artists and arts organisations bring to this mix is arts expertise and experience. Not only are we working with socially driven indicators, but we also set them in the context of artistic challenge and ambition. What attracts young people to use arts is the opportunity to engage with the art form and explore their own particular interests, irrespective of the art form. There are many examples of good arts programmes for young people in the areas of social exclusion working towards inclusion and disadvantage. We have heard a couple of such examples and I can provide further examples should members wish.

Deputy Sandra McLellan

I thank the delegation for its presentation. Apart from funding, what obstacles does the Arts Council face on a day to day basis and how important is volunteerism for the organisation? How did the project with the pigeon fanciers in Ballymun come about, because in general one would not consider pigeon fancying to come under the arts heading? I am sure there are a number of pigeon fanciers around the country who would like to be included in an arts project.

Chairman

I am sure there are more who fancy pigeons from the gastronomic or culinary viewpoint.

Deputy Sandra McLellan

I am speaking from personal experience. My brother keeps pigeons and I am sure he would be very interested in this.

Ms Orlaith McBride

Apart from the funding obstacle, expertise would be a key issue at both local authority and national level. The moratorium is also an issue. When local authority arts officers lose staff, they cannot replace them and therefore cannot bring their expertise into the local arts service to ensure initiatives, interventions, programmes and projects can continue. Movement from project to project to ensure mainstream sustainability is being critically hampered at a national level across all of the 34 local authorities. The moratorium, therefore, is having a catastrophic effect across the country in terms of our ability to continue to deliver.

Ms Monica Corcoran

That is true. In terms of numbers, the total full-time equivalent in arts services four years ago was 121, but this is now down to 86, a drop of almost 30% in staff. Many of those gone were specialist outreach staff who worked in the community context. It is important to highlight this as it links to a question asked earlier with regard to measuring outcomes. I see the measurement of data as another obstacle. On a broader level, we need to value more the stories of positive outcomes from the arts in social inclusion. We talk about data all the time and the past few years have been very much dominated by the economic issues. However, society must value more the stories told on a daily basis throughout the country of the huge impact the arts are having on people's lives.

Deputy Gerald Nash

I thank the Arts Council delegates for taking time to come in to assist us in our work and thank the council for the invaluable work carried out since its inception a number of years ago. I am aware the council is approaching an important anniversary and that will give us all the opportunity to celebrate the input of the council's members and their predecessors.

The arts in the community scheme is invaluable, as is the service provided by local authorities, particularly in terms of taking the mystique out of engagement with the arts. Members have often found a resistance in some communities and more marginalised parts of society against engaging because the view has been put forward that the arts are an elitist pursuit, not for them and inaccessible. However, the local arts offices and the work of people like Ms Corcoran, the entire Arts Council and other organisations have been invaluable in terms of breaking down the barriers. I have seen people who having had early and unlikely exposure to the arts have gone on to develop careers in the sector and these people bring much more to their community as a result.

If we are to combat disadvantage through the arts, we must be clear about our funding policy for the regions. My interest would centre on professional theatre and I have been involved in quite a number of professional theatre companies. The view that has developed across the country, evident in the council's budgetary decisions this year, is that only a handful of professional theatre companies are being resourced through core programme funding. Other companies have seen serious reductions or the complete removal of funding, particularly some organisations that are working well and successfully with marginalised young people. The effective cut in the budgetary envelope from the Department this year was approximately 2.5%. I understand the Arts Council has policy decisions to make - everybody has in our more constrained environment - but I do not see it applying cuts of 2.5%. Instead, we have seen decisions being taken to remove funding from some organisations and to prioritise others. I accept the function of the Arts Council and that it has the statutory right to do that. However, from the point of view of funding, how can we continue to protect the regions and those we want to protect in terms of the arts and disadvantage if we take that sort of approach? Would it not be more effective and acceptable to introduce a general cut rather than remove some people from core funding altogether, particularly people working on the ground with those who experience disadvantage on a daily basis?

Ms Orlaith McBride

It would not be appropriate for us to enter into discussion on the Arts Council's funding strategy this year. However, I would point out that the €26.7 million the Arts Council invested in 2011 at local level went to every county in the country. Therefore, it is not as if the funding strategy is centred on Dublin. Funding through local authorities was €2 million.

Difficult choices must be made. I am aware of the particular cases to which Deputy Nash referred, but it would be inappropriate to discuss those here. Every county is supported by the Arts Council. Some 34 local authorities and 52 venues across the country are supported and all of these are engaged in community interventions and work with children, older people and people with disabilities. The Arts Council ensures in various ways that support is available across the board to every area and community.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

I thank the delegation for attending this afternoon and we appreciate the opportunity to engage with them. Like previous speakers, I am familiar with the work of the Arts Council and the economic benefits it provides to various projects and programmes along with expertise that is essential to ensure good quality outcomes for everybody.

I have a couple of questions with regard to local authorities. I come from a local authority background and have a particular interest in the arts but I have always found it a little difficult to deal with what may be termed the "matching funding" policy. Is that policy still in place and does the council match what a local authority provides? This policy was a disadvantage in local authority areas that were not in a position to generate significant money because of a smaller population and lack of businesses. The only way local authorities can generate funding currently is through commercial rates. Therefore, the "matching funding" policy was a huge disadvantage in some local authority areas, certainly in County Offaly. Is the policy still in place and if so, is it intended to change it?

I welcome the links the council is establishing with the Department, the county managers and the directors of services and I look forward to seeing greater understanding and sharing of information from all parties. How does the Arts Council view having somebody from either the Department or one of the other organisations on the board of the council? Bringing that regional view to board meetings might be worth considering.

I have a thing about the fact that arts officers are designated as officers. Do the witnesses have any view on whether they should be considered as managers? I feel very strongly that they should be at management level meetings and that they would be inputting on the various programmes dealt with by the local authorities. What is in a name? Personally, I think it is very important and I would love to hear the witnesses' thoughts on that.

The Arts Council had a meeting in Offaly a couple of years ago, and this provided a fantastic opportunity to the Arts Council to present to the local authority and to mingle with the members of the local authority. It generated a huge amount of interest at local level that the Arts Council had a board meeting in our county. That is a marvellous way of sharing the good news of the Arts Council across the country. We can all be busy working, but I know as a politician that there is no point in working and nobody knowing you are working. That bit of positive PR needs to be put out a bit more, and the council should consider these initiatives more in the future.

Tackling the impression that the arts are only for an elite is a real challenge for everybody involved. How are we to do that? Ms Corcoran mentioned the stories. There are so many stories about young people across the country who have benefited so much by their participation. We heard them here when the Graffiti Theatre Company and other projects came in. We have to try to get that out there, which is a job in itself. How will the Arts Council get this message out there?

People receiving funding would find that the multi-annual funding would be much better than an annual funding stream. Is this a priority for the council and is it capable of doing it? It gives a security to the organisations in receipt of funding that they can actually make a plan for two or three years, rather than waiting every year and holding back until they hear what they are getting. It seems to me that those who receive multi-annual funding from other sources find it is a security which would be very helpful to others. I might come back with more questions later.

Chairman

No problem. Thank you.

Ms Orlaith McBride

In respect of representation, it is obviously a matter for the Government to appoint people to the Arts Council, so the council executive would not be involved in that. A former ministerial adviser might be able to offer more insight into that process, but it would be fair to say that-----

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

Is Ms McBride talking about me or somebody else?

Ms Orlaith McBride

I am talking about the Senator. It would be fair to say that when one becomes a member of the Arts Council, one is not and cannot be representational. It becomes much more of a collective and therefore, I cannot represent Donegal as somebody who comes from Donegal and is involved in the Arts Council. That representation must be left outside the door when one becomes a member of the council. It would be fair to say that in the past, it has happened. I know that the county librarian in Clare was a member of the Arts Council in the past. Appointments to the council are obviously a matter for the Government. Recent appointments have seen the Minister move away from sectoral representation and much more to broader skills and expertise around the council table.

I agree completely with the Deputy's point about meetings outside Dublin. It is important that the Arts Council is seen to move around the country, given that we are the national State agency. We do so once a year. It is quite an expensive thing and given that we have to keep expenditure down, it only happens on an annual basis. This year it is happening in Kilkenny. Last year it took place in Limerick. It has taken place in Donegal, Kerry, Laois, Offaly and Wexford. Every year there is a concerted effort to ensure that the two day policy meeting of the Arts Council happens in some local authority area. It is an important statement for us to make, but it is also important that we hear those stories at a local level from local representatives and from those people who are making art and involved in arts organisations at a local level.

As the State agency for the arts, we would love to receive a multi-annual funding envelope from the Government. It would then make it much easier for us to make multi-annual commitments to organisations if we had that degree of security ourselves. We have one multi-annual relationship in place and we are looking at the potential to develop three year funding envelopes with a number of organisations, but there are issues with which we have to concern ourselves, such as exposure and the risk involved from entering into formal commitments at that level. As we do not get a three year envelope, we also need to talk to officials in our parent Department to ensure that they are happy with us entering into multi-annual funding agreements with a range of arts organisations.

Ms Monica Corcoran

The policy of matching funding does not apply any more. It was tied to the original strategy to create the arts officer posts and ensure they got adequate funding for their programmes. It came to a point where the programme funding for arts services far surpassed what the Arts Council was contributing. There may have been exceptions to that of course. Important strategic changes have been made to funding, one of which is that we no longer fund arts officer salaries. We were part-funding some of them up until last year. Our focus on funding now is exclusively on programme funding.

The Arts Council is continuously reviewing the area of local arts provision and we are doing this in concert with a number of partners, including the CCMA. We would much prefer to be looking in a more negotiated way with individual local authorities at the broader arts provision and working out together how best to fund initiatives. That would be a much better way of doing it and that is what we are aspiring to.

I agree with the Deputy's point about arts officers being made managers. There should be some sort of progression route for them within a local authority. Making them cultural managers has been discussed before, wherein they would manage a broader cultural department. The previous 12 year integrated strategies for social, economic and cultural development were developed on the notion that some kind of structure like that existed, but actually it does not and there is little capacity for it. Arts officers are the best equipped and have the most expertise built up over the years to play that role. The Arts Council has played a significant role in the past in negotiating the grade at which the arts officer is employed. The majority of them are employed at grade seven in the local authority structure, but we would welcome seeing them at a more senior level in the local authority.

Ms Orlaith McBride

I would like to ask Ms Tanham to address the issue of elitism within the arts.

Ms Gaye Tanham

People might say that I would say this, but I regard the 1 million children and young people in our country as the elite. What is needed to ensure equal access for all of those young people, both in and out of school, is a far more coherent joined up strategy. The Arts Council has been endeavouring to bring that about through recommendations from the "Points of Alignment" report, which focuses on the formal education system. We have in place a very good and active partnership with the youth affairs section of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, which focuses on youth arts and on trying to build greater access and capacity within local youth services to deliver good arts programmes across communities and cultures. It is in that way that we tackle notions - sometimes faulty, sometimes sound - of elitism. Certainly, the Arts Council is very much involved in trying to broker good, coherent discussion and bring about systemic provision for arts programmes for all young people in Ireland.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

As director of the Abbey Theatre I receive a three-year funding package from the Arts Council. Although there will not be any conflict of interest in my questions, I want to acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that along with many of my colleagues in the Visitors Gallery, I am a proud member and founder of the National Campaign for the Arts, which supports advocacy for the arts across all sectors.

I thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee. Some of my questions are broad ones. First, what is the current status of the Points of Alignment report? I know a special committee was set up by the Department to deal with this. There is an emerging picture in the work that this committee has been doing over the last six weeks. There are various Departments - Ms McBride mentioned most of them - which have arts funding relationships, including the Departments of Justice and Equality, Children and Youth Affairs, Education and Skills and Social Protection. However, there is not necessarily any co-ordinating or strategic involvement. Ms McBride mentioned a regular meeting with Des Dowling from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, but I ask her to be more specific. Is there a particular strategy or policy this committee should consider with regard to aligning or making a connection among the various Departments so that we can get a fuller picture of how the arts are funded? We are still unsure. We are getting different figures for local authority funding, although in fairness, we have yet to have representatives of that Department before the committee. Ms McBride mentioned a figure of €25.6 million from local authorities. I would like to get a better picture of what the Arts Council is doing to engage with various Departments and how this committee could come up with a strategy. One of the recommendations was to do with social inclusion, but surely the Arts Council is there to develop and promote the arts. What is the Arts Council doing with regard to that objective and how is it advocating that across other Departments? How can the committee assess it?

Ms McBride also mentioned collecting better data on what the Arts Council does and highlighting the social and economic effects of the arts. What is the Arts Council doing at the moment in this regard? Do we have any data? I am not referring just to social inclusion; I will come to the measurement issue shortly. Do we have enough figures? The Arts Council is the advocacy group and the formal State agency. Are there other Departments that have such data? We have had many presentations over the last couple of weeks, some of which have illustrated very good work on data collecting, particularly the Irish Chamber Orchestra. There is a concern from arts practitioners that there is a lack of global data on issues of participation and funding.

With regard to measurement, one of the great pressures on the Arts Council, as the Chairman mentioned in his preface, is what came out of the debate on what I call the politics of funding in the 1980s, in which there were two opposite poles of excellence versus participation. This damaged both sides. These things should not be mutually exclusive. Does the Arts Council feel such pressure even by coming to this committee? One of its recommendations is for greater social inclusion, which would encompass the arts. Is that really its position? Is it really something it should be doing? Should it actually be considering social inclusion as a value-added outcome? I ask the witnesses to be straight with us about that. Is there a potential conflict with regard to the public policy role in developing the arts in Ireland?

I ask the witnesses for their particular recommendations - I am repeating what I said earlier - on what this committee could do in terms of proposing that other Departments come together. For instance, should there be a dedicated official in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government dealing with arts provision? I do not think this is currently the case. Ms Corcoran said that the Department, through the local authorities, pays the full salaries of the arts officers. That is a significant investment by the Department. Is there a policy unit in that Department solely dealing with arts provision? If not, what should the committee do about that, and what is the Arts Council doing about it?

My questions are about a macro policy-making area. I ask the witnesses to tell us straight about the challenges facing the Arts Council in developing that. When we talk to arts groups and those in the arts community, we hear they are great at leveraging money from many different sources and Departments, but we as a committee do not know what is the global budget in each Department and how much money and influence the Arts Council has in affecting those policy decisions.

Ms Orlaith McBride

I will start with the status of the Points of Alignment. In the foyer, before we came to the committee, I met the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Deenihan, who is committed to the spirit of the report as opposed to the actual joint report that came out in 2006. He is committed to greater alignment between education and arts and has met with the Minister for Education and Skills in this regard. There have also been meetings at assistant secretary level and at adviser level. Without pre-empting any conversations that are taking place at that macro political level, I am confident about this. The Senator knows me. This is where I come from in terms of my professional expertise and what I am committed to. I believe we will begin to see real change in this area, albeit slow. The political will to consider some of the recommendations from Points of Alignment, which was not there a number of years ago, now exists. They may not look the same as they did in the report but the bringing together of education and the arts will begin to happen. I believe this and I am confident it will happen, although it may happen more slowly than we thought. Given that in 1979 the Arts Council commissioned the Benson report, many of whose key recommendations were the same as those of Points of Alignment in 2006, it is clear that the Arts Council has never shied away from the area of arts in education. We are committed to working with the current Minister to ensure that we see real progress, and I believe we will.

Ms Corcoran might give more detail on this, but it is fair to say that although we met with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, and then with Des Dowling, the assistant secretary responsible for local authorities, there is not a major appetite for the arts within the Department. I plead with this committee to ensure that whatever comes out of its deliberations provides a mandate to the Department to take responsibility in this regard. We can do as much as we can, as a State agency, in advocating for the arts by meeting with people from the Department, the County and City Managers Association and the county and city enterprise boards. That can all happen, and it is happening systematically. However, for a public committee of the Oireachtas to ensure that the Department will really begin to take notice of its responsibility for the arts and culture would represent major progress from our point of view. I ask Ms Corcoran to say more about this.

Ms Monica Corcoran

There is not much more to say.

Ms Orlaith McBride

We want explicit recognition of the arts within the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

Ms Monica Corcoran

Ms McBride mentioned that there was not much appetite for the arts within that Department, but there certainly was an interest, and an acknowledgement that the arts are part of local government. There is an interest in the broader notion of cultural provision. There are heritage officers and various other personnel, and local authorities are increasingly working in such areas. It would be incredible to make the case for a dedicated unit to examine this area of provision.

Senator Fiach MacCongail

The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government comes under this committee.

Ms Monica Corcoran

That is correct.

Senator Fiach MacCongail

Its officials are invited to attend the committee next week. Is the figure of €25.6 million accurate?

Ms Monica Corcoran

Yes. The figure refers to areas outside Dublin city. I can give the Senator the totals for local authorities' spend over the past number of years.

Ms Orlaith McBride

In every county in Ireland.

Ms Monica Corcoran

We have collected the information scrupulously over the past number of years. In 2011 the total local authority spend was €29.9 million. In 2010 it was €39.2 million, which includes capital spend. The capital figure has been reducing over the past number of years. In 2009 it was €35 million. In 2008 it was €47.8 million, because there was a lot of capital at that point. That is the level of investment by local authorities in the arts.

We referred to the provision of venues. The Arts Council contributes to arts service programmes and funds venues but local authorities probably fund venues more than we do at this point.

Senator Fiach MacCongail

Before I move on, is there tension between the Arts Council and local authorities at local level regarding funding local venues? How is the Arts Council approaching that issue?

Ms Orlaith McBride

We fund 52 venues around the country, of which 34 are local authority venues. When we did not have 52 venues, the Arts Council may have funded venues that happen to be local authority venues more. Given the new venues coming on the books every year, we have had to have tough discussions with many local authorities and tell them that in order to ensure a county is catered for will have to reduce funding for other venues. While the Arts Council might have been a major funder of a venue, we have told local authorities we need to have a more equitable and equal conversation with them about their venues.

Chairman

On the statement made about elite engagement with the arts, my engagement with the arts has happened predominantly in prisons in probation workshops and community settings. As Deputy Murphy said, a lot of those who would be called mainstream children do not engage with the arts as they have not had the misfortune of falling into projects such as the Prison Service programmes, VEC probation services, community centres and local authorities.

Senator MacCongail referred to dealing with social inclusion, engagement and participation, and having evidence-based research. A number of groups which have come before us have done or have been trying to do that. One of the gaps we have identified is that a lot of third level institutions across the country are turning out masters degree and PhD graduates in the arts but there does not seem to be a connection point with local authorities' arts programmes. Is the delegation examining this issue? In terms of its funding approach, what research principles is it considering?

As part of the programme for Government, next year the gathering for 2013 will be a massive heritage event. I listened to Joe O'Connor on the "Late Late Show" last Friday night who made the accurate point that our track record in the arts and our ability to produce high-quality products, whether in drama, arts, literature or whatever, is a huge resource. Does the delegation have a strategy for the gathering? Has it engaged with any Department with regard to it? Is there an opportunity for connection points between the delegation and local authorities to be developed or ironed out during the gathering programme? Heritage and other factors can be seen in a wider context.

The delegation mentioned arts in the Prison Service. Does it have a specific programme in regard to arts and Traveller groups? The lifelong learning festival in Cork, which involves the crossover between education and the arts, engaged in a successful programme with the reconstruction of a Traveller wagon which went on to tour the country. It was a major highlight of the heritage year in Cork. Is specific funding earmarked for engagement with Traveller programmes or strategies?

In terms of funding strategies, does the delegation consider arts at SME level with regard to start-up funding? Some groups can be partly or mainly independent. There is an economy within which successful arts groups can operate.

Ms Orlaith McBride

I will discuss the gathering first. We have been asked to don the green jersey, particularly with local authorities. I have met the steering group and John Concannon. We are involved in the gathering. A former member of the Arts Council is a member of the steering group and a current member of the Arts Council is also involved, particularly with festivals. There is a recognition that local authorities are the key drivers at local level. Once the gathering has been decided upon we will be able to respond.

Chairman

We are very interested in knowing what it will look like.

Ms Orlaith McBride

We will be able to respond to that once we know what it will look like. I will ask Ms Tanham to discuss data collection which is an area we are exercised by in terms of the absence of national data.

Ms Gaye Tanham

It is the case that data gathering, in a coherent way, is something the arts in general in Ireland need to get better at. I can speak on children and young people, which is my area of expertise. We have recently become involved with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, which has launched its national research data strategy. We are engaging with it and it will be the first time the involvement of children and young people in the arts will be counted in terms of quality of life. Measures will be developed to include involvement in the arts.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

Is that a formal decision?

Ms Gaye Tanham

Yes. The strategy was launched by the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, before Christmas. A number of agencies are partners, of which the Arts Council is one. It goes across the Departments of Education and Skills, Health and Justice and Equality and a range of agencies and departments. The process has begun. Many arts organisations gather quantitative and qualitative information but they all do it differently and, understandably, to support the cases they want to make to various funders for advocacy purposes. At a national level the arts need to find ways to engage with the national count and measurement. The Arts Council is beginning the process at a national level with the strategy. There is a need for evidence-based policy making.

In the context of that research strategy, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs will take the oversight of all of the information gathered and the arts will be part of that. There will also be a discrete mechanism for extrapolating the information on the arts as well.

I would like to make a further comment on the elitism question. The argument that has been made is absolutely correct. One sometimes hears that children and young people have to be involved in disadvantage programmes in order to access the arts. We have many programmes. Almost all of the local authorities run artists in schools programmes. As we know, a sure-fire way to ensure children and young people can access the arts is to provide for universal access through our schools. Ms McBride has stressed the importance of achieving the Points of Alignment agenda in order to ensure children and young people can enjoy universal access to the arts.

Chairman

I asked about Travellers and SMEs.

Ms Orla Moloney

Those questions can be linked to the old chestnut of excellence versus participation, which was raised earlier. Travellers are named as a group within our cultural diversity in the arts policy. Funding for projects in which Travellers are involved is generally provided through the arts participation programme. It can also be provided in other ways, for example in the context of festivals or by means of individual artist awards. One of the interesting things is that the term "participation" can be used as a description of almost anything. When the Arts Council examined participation in the arts, it defined what its piece of the huge environment is. The piece of the landscape that is funded and supported by the Arts Council generally involves collaboration with highly-skilled artists. There is no big divide between excellence and participation. There is no doubt that in seeking to develop this piece of the arts sector, the council is leaving a huge gap. One could examine many other areas of participation. There is a need for other agencies to come on board. It is more about their agenda, whatever it might be. It might be about health outcomes, for example. The Arts Council has an arts in health policy. We are looking at the area of collaboration between highly-skilled artists and people using or working in the health service. We are making it clear that we do not fund the area that is all about a health outcome. If it is about therapy, that is not the part the Arts Council gets involved in. It is about collaborating on, making, exploring and presenting new work together. In a way, that is a limited enough piece of the pitch. There is a huge area of work that could be done. Many other agencies really need to come on board in those areas to make other types of work possible.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

Ms Moloney said that the Arts Council does not look at the outcome of the therapy.

Ms Orla Moloney

Exclusively.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

If that kind of thing could be measured in some way, it would be a strong argument for the Arts Council to receive further funding from the Department. Perhaps it could link with the Department of Health and get it to measure it in some way. At least that significant information, which is missing at present, would be available.

Ms Orla Moloney

Quite a lot of research has been done in this regard. When I say we do not fund therapy, I am not saying we are not concerned in any way with a health outcome. It has to have a combined artistic outcome and health outcome. There has been a great deal of research on health outcomes in the area of arts and health. Some of that information has been collated in the UK, which is really interesting. There is research based on Irish examples as well.

Chairman

We will conclude this part of the meeting. I thank Ms Orlaith McBride, Ms Monica Corcoran, Ms Gaye Tanham and Ms Orla Moloney for assisting us with our deliberations. I know they have been observing the committee's proceedings to date and will continue to do so. If they would like to submit any further information to the committee before we start to prepare our report, we would be pleased to receive such deliberations as we have received the presentation that has been made this afternoon. On behalf of the committee, I thank the witnesses for their assistance.

Sitting suspended at 4.05 p.m. and resumed at 4.07 p.m.

Chairman

We will continue our consideration on the topic of utilising the arts to combat disadvantage among the young, the old and the socially disadvantaged to create greater integration and social inclusion with local communities. I welcome the following: Ms Janice McAdam, who is representing the National Campaign for the Arts; Mr. Willie White, who is the director of the Dublin Theatre Festival; and Ms Mona Considine who is the director of the Backstage Theatre in Longford and a member of the board of the Theatre Forum. I thank them for attending the committee.

I draw their attention to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to this committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given. They are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they 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. I wish to advise them that the opening statements they 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.

As I said earlier, we have been considering this topic over recent weeks and months. We have met a wide sample of the various stakeholders who are involved in the sector. We are now approaching the conclusion of our considerations. We will meet officials from the various Departments next week. Accordingly, I am pleased that representatives of the National Campaign for the Arts are before us today. Since the campaign was established in 2009, those involved have worked vigorously to promote the arts in Ireland and to support artists who work in the arts. I note from the campaign website that the organisation intends to establish a new national steering committee and structure and to implement a major fund-raising programme over the next three years. I also note that one of the campaign's objectives for 2012 is to lobby to protect arts funding at local government level. In that context, their appearance at this forum is very timely.

We will be interested to hear the views of delegates on how they intend to proceed with their campaign and how they would like this issue to be tackled. Before they make their opening address and participate in the subsequent discussions today, I remind them that the role of this committee is to consider how public representatives, Departments, Government agencies and local authorities can assist local arts groups in their efforts. Our primary objective is to identify how this work can be done better, more effectively and more efficiently. We want to know where the gaps are and what we can do. If there are specific recommendations, the delegates should not be shy about making them to us. Their doing so makes our job easier because if we judge a recommendation to be appropriate, progress will be made thereon. The delegates should not be shy or hesitant about any of these matters.

Ms Janice McAdam

On behalf of all the members of the NCFA, I thank the members for their invitation and welcome. My presentation will refer to the NCFA but most members know what it is and what it does. If they did not, we, as part of a lobbying organisation, would be in trouble. We will review some of the impacts and the value of the arts in light of the remit of this committee. The Chairman will be glad to hear we have two slides with eight recommendations, which we will go through in detail.

The NCFA was set up in 2009 in response to Mr. Colm McCarthy's report, which made recommendations that would have devastated the cultural infrastructure and arts sector. For the first time in many years, the arts sector mobilised. Our organisation has now become a large and pretty significant one that punches above its weight, as President Barack Obama might say.

Chairman

He said that about many things.

Ms Janice McAdam

Exactly, but it is true of us. We are still volunteer led. We have a national remit and can mobilise in all 43 constituencies. We represent artists, arts organisations and anyone who values the arts.

Some have said to us in recent weeks that there are rumours in certain Departments that the NCFA's work is done. I would like to quash those rumours now. It is just wishful thinking on the Departments' part. Perhaps they just wish we would go away, but we are not going away and we have a lot of work to do. We are particularly concerned about the public sector reform plan. Within that, there are a number of reviews under way. Cultural infrastructure is under threat because a number of bodies are being reviewed. Some are national cultural institutions and it is being decided whether they should be rationalised, amalgamated, abolished or merged. Culture Ireland, for example, is under review. We are concerned about the rationale behind the review and the strategy in place. We would like to participate, if possible, in the review. We know it is not the remit of this particular committee to examine this but we would be more than happy to make a submission in this regard should it choose to do so.

We are all present today because the members, like us, believe in the value of the arts. They believe in a society that values creativity, imagination and expression. Members know the value the arts can play in addressing social disadvantage, building social cohesion, etc. The arts help us express who we are as individuals and as a community, be it a geographic community, in respect of which I have a lovely example from Carlow, or a community of need. The arts also help us express who we are a society and nation. We in the arts community are ready and willing to help rebuild Ireland as somewhere of which we can be proud.

Over the past few weeks the committee has received submissions from many of our colleagues working in arts organisations and local authorities. They have talked about their work on disadvantage, social cohesion, social integration, etc. The arts have an impact or value in all sorts of areas. I want to consider in a little more detail what the committee has been considering and what has been discussed more broadly in the press with regard to the economy and employment. The arts do provide jobs and the arts industry is a quite significant employer. The Arts Council's commissioned Indecon report from last year shows the arts provide 21,328 jobs. One of the biggest groups currently facing disenfranchisement comprises all those who have been made newly redundant.

The arts comprise a sector that has always been very good at working with new social initiatives, such as jobs initiatives, FÁS schemes and community employment schemes. Many venues and organisations have been staffed through these schemes. They have helped many people get their feet on the bottom of a ladder to take them elsewhere and onwards.

Let me mark the committee's card in regard to how much the arts contribute to the economy. While we get money through funding, we prefer to see it as investment because there is a large return for the Exchequer in addition to the soft returns that I will talk about later.

It seems interesting and odd to talk about the arts helping to foster a culture of innovation. I came across a report in the United Kingdom recently that states:

In the 21st century, the UK's economic competitiveness and social wellbeing will increasingly depend on our ability to innovate. A significant part of the innovation process revolves around ‘creativity' ....

In the arts industry we do this incredibly well. We innovate, work with ideas and restructure or consider old ideas all the time. If we are to be economically competitive and a socially well country, we must look to this area a little more closely. Breeding a culture of innovation starts in the classroom, and probably even before that. The NCFA would love to call for the arts to be embedded within the curriculum so the next generation would be educated in the culture of creativity and innovation.

Some of the people who have addressed this committee are actually social innovators. They are already models of good practice. The Bealtaine festival is being rolled out internationally, including in Australia and Scotland. The Sing Out with Strings project from Limerick is being rolled out internationally. There is a twin-track approach. Therefore, the point on innovation has become very important in terms of examining the areas of social cohesion and disadvantage. The arts drive tourism, which is about jobs. They enhance Ireland's reputation and work with business.

Consider the arts and health programmes. Representatives of Anam Beo, from Offaly, were before the committee in this regard. Arts and health programmes contribute to a fast-evolving sector in the arts and health provision. The programmes have moved from being nice to engage in to being important to engage in. They have proven outcomes. There is an initiative in Ireland called the Open Windows Project that has become the first clinically proven arts and health project in the world.

Social inclusion is about people who are sick, who comprise one of our most excluded constituencies, but it is also about the well-being of all of us. While the members are probably sick to death of people quoting studies from Europe, I must mention one that states cultural access ranks as the second determinant of social well-being. This slide is probably the most important. As we all know, education is the door out of poverty and disadvantage. Programmes such as Common Purpose in Dublin and Sing Out with Strings in Limerick are evidence of arts programmes that are helping to keep children in school. They are based on attendance and are helping children to learn. I am sure that Mr. John Kelly of the Irish Chamber Orchestra was particularly effusive about how learning a musical instrument had been proven to improve brain development and help future learning.

The next slide outlines the Carlow project to which I referred. It is a fine example of a local authority initiative that helped to forge a local community and create a sense of identity. Called "Sheltering from the Rain", it is an opera written about the people of Carlow for the people of Carlow and performed by them. It was leveraged within other members of the community. For example, the local vocational education committee, VEC, organised a FETAC-accredited course for the volunteers, the local hotel got involved and other groups, such as the local choir and youth groups, were used. This evidence supports our statement that the arts enrich our lives, contribute to society and help to build our nation.

We want to examine the hard facts about how local authorities, arts organisations and the cultural infrastructure make this work. Let us revert to the sums. The Arts Council's investment in the arts is €63.2 million, down 25% from the high of 2008. When we asked for local authority funding for the arts, the County and City Managers Association, CCMA, through the Office of Local Authority Management, OLAM, replied with the figure shown. The body stated that this was the best its system could do, but the figure is not accurate or definitive. What one local authority determines arts funding to be might differ from another authority's determination. Even if the figure is not accurate, though, it remains a significant sum of money and is almost on a par with Arts Council funding. For this reason, we will make a number of recommendations to the committee.

We would like to establish the facts about local authority funding for the arts. What sums are being invested, what are the salaries involved and how much is spent on programmes that concentrate on social disadvantage or the practising of professional arts? If this amount is invested in the arts at local level, it is time to have an official with dedicated responsibility for the arts within the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Such an official would have expertise, would be informed and could inform. This is a matter of co-ordinating and cohering policy and actions in respect of local authority funding. As a follow-on from this, it is time for a shared consideration and understanding of what people are trying to achieve at local level. We recommend that the key stakeholders be brought together.

The funding by the authorities is substantial yet discretionary. As such, every project that has presented to the committee in the past six weeks is vulnerable, in that all of their work could disappear. Local authority funding for the arts should become compulsory.

We have more recommendations. There should be local authority experience on the Arts Council. This is a question of joining up the dots. If these two bodies, as it were, are spending more than €100 million on funding the arts, they should be talking to each other cohesively.

I will go into some detail, although Ms Considine might help me. The Arts Council's strategy is to increase funding to venues with substantial local authority funding and to reduce funding to venues with minimal local authority funding. It will do this without regard for how well established, good or reputed those venues' work is. An example would be useful. The Linenhall Arts Centre in County Mayo is one of the longest established venues. It receives €35,000 from its local authority and €255,000 from the Arts Council. This is a significant difference. Under the current strategy, the Arts Council will cut a venue's funding because its local authority is not funding it substantially. There are further examples. Our members are being punished and squeezed by this strategy and are finding it difficult to continue. Can this situation be resolved or considered?

In the past six weeks, Senator Mac Conghail might have discussed research with the committee. We have a bee in our bonnet about it. We are undertaking research to establish a roadmap for the further research that is necessary. A body of evidence is missing. It would help the National Campaign for the Arts, NCFA, to make its case for the arts more clearly. It would also help to inform policy and decision making at Government level. There is an opportunity for a pilot programme involving, for example, six local authorities on the question of cultural participation. Arts Audiences considers cultural participation in the case of adults, but there is no nationwide record of cultural participation among younger people. A longitudinal study is examining the impact of the arts on individuals. It considers matters such as well being, social cohesion, citizenship, etc. We are well behind Europe in terms of research.

This is a matter of having conversations, joined-up thinking and active collaboration between all of the Departments working in the areas of social disadvantage, social integration, education, etc. Although I have phrased it informally, this is our recommendation.

We are making these recommendations because the committee appreciates the value of the arts. They are a necessity, not a luxury. They are an asset, not an overhead. We all grow in a culture.

Chairman

I thank Ms McAdam. I will open the floor to members' questions.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

I thank Ms McAdam for her presentation, which was well put. I learned much from it. Besides funding, what are the main obstacles to the NCFA?

Ms Janice McAdam

Joined-up thinking.

Ms Mona Considine

A major obstacle is the lack of communication between Departments, local authorities and the Arts Council. The Arts Council has met the CCMA and individual local authorities, but the council's strategy is to reduce funding for the core costs of venues with low local authority support in the expectation that local authorities will fund those costs. If that to be applied by the Arts Council as a national strategy, it needs to be mirrored by a national strategy from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and local authorities. When that does not happen, venues like ours find have to deal with two different organisations which are sending mixed messages. When we speak about social inclusion, we must bear in mind that certain local authorities, including Longford, have a low rates base. For example, Longford has a considerable population of Travellers and a large amount of social housing. The county's population is poor and dispersed among disadvantaged communities. The local authority has been challenged to increase funding during a recessionary time. We are caught in a difficult position, therefore, and communication between Departments is necessary to ensure that local authorities are aware of national strategies which are dependent on their funding.

Chairman

Ms McAdam indicated that cultural tourism is an area with significant growth potential in terms of income for the economy. What growth factors would she identify in this area? I am also interested in learning more about Imagine Ireland and the Business to Arts programme. While it may be correct to say the Department does not have an appetite for these endeavours it is none the less forking out a lot of money.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

Is "forking out money" a technical term?

Chairman

The witnesses recommend that local authorities bring their experience to the council. How do they envisage that structure being created? Developing the necessary mechanisms is something with which we will have to struggle.

In regard to resolving local authority and Arts Council funding for venues, who do they think should ultimately pay the bill? Is it simply the case that somebody has to decide who takes responsibility?

We previously discussed with representatives from local authorities the use of pop-up shops for artistic purposes during a defined period. If such spaces are exempted from rates for a period of, for example, two to three months, they would permit a group to stage an exhibition or performance on an affordable basis.

The witnesses identified the facts about local authority funding at a departmental level, where an official would be receiving information, but the data would have to be gathered at local level. Have they given thought to whether the local authority arts officer should prepare an annual report on how money was spent and to whom should the report be submitted?

Ms Janice McAdam

The Chairman asked a number of questions and I will work backwards on them if that is agreeable. The question of how the money would be collated needs to be discussed with local authorities. It might not be our place to put a recommendation on the table but we would certainly discuss the issue. We have a good working relationship with the Association of Local Authority Arts Officers. However, the structure would have to be mandated from the top so that it feeds into the Department. Sometimes part of a programme under the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sports ends up in the arts budget. Working out the parameters is key.

Dublin City Council has gone quite far down the road in embracing the idea of vacant spaces. I understand Limerick is pursuing similar initiatives. I presume that once a model of good practice has been developed, it can be rolled out elsewhere.

In regard to the bill, what happens if there is going to be a deficit? The Linenhall in Mayo, for example, is down money from the Arts Council and the local authority does not want to budge. A mechanism has to be put in place so that the three parties can speak to each other.

Ms Mona Considine

There have been meetings around the country. In Longford we held meetings with an Arts Council representative, the county manager and the director of services to discuss the difficulties arising. It is a challenging issue to resolve because the local authority says it does not have the means to increase support and the Arts Council wants to get to a position whereby all venues across the country receive equal funding. That is too simplistic, however.

Chairman

One does not have uniformity across the country. For example, Cork City Council has a strong track record of funding the Opera House. One cannot compare like with like. We are asking for a more macro recommendation.

Mr. Willie White

The Chairman stated that the Government is forking out a lot of money and asked us to identify the gaps. One of the gaps is the weakness of the research base underlying decisions. How does the Government know it is getting value for money? The investment of €100 million among a population of 4 million is quite low on a per capita basis.

In regard to Deputy Corcoran Kennedy's question about barriers, reference is regularly made to the report delivered by the NASF in January 2007 and the ESRI's report, "In the Frame or Out of the Picture". There is a significant amount of useful information. It is a question not only about gathering data, but also reading and implementing the resulting reports. Participation in the arts in Ireland varies markedly according to a number of factors, especially education level, socioeconomic status, area and age. This variation is associated with a range of barriers, such as economic costs, poor transport, lack of literacy and social and psychological barriers. The Arts Council is only part of the picture in terms of solving these problems.

In terms of up-to-date evidence, six years have elapsed since the council produced its report, "The Public and the Arts 2006", and there has been considerable change in Ireland's population in terms of our ethnic make-up and emigration of younger people. There is also the TGI index from 2010 about arts audiences. In general, however, a limited body of evidence is usually produced to make an economic argument.

The Chairman asked about cultural tourism. Tourism is the business of the tourism bodies. Art is the business of the Arts Council. As was pointed out in an article on museums in The Irish Times last weekend, one would like to think that citizens are the first people who get to enjoy our cultural heritage and if they invest their time and the Government’s money, tourists may also wish to enjoy it. The international experience suggests that cultural tourism succeeds where locals embrace the arts in the first instance. I would be wary of taking decisions intended to promote cultural tourism if they neglected the local population. Serious issues arise in regard to equality in society and access not only to the arts, but across the board in terms of education. The Arts Council can only be part of that. We need the Government to provide a vision and a policy. Last September, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht stated in the Seanad that his Department would focus on strategic policy formation. It is not a question of how much is spent but about why it is spent. It is not about money; it is about value and until we have that we will not have joined up thinking. That is the fundamental gap we face at present.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

Mr. White did not come here to be quiet.

Ms Janice McAdam

What did the Chairman want to know about Imagine Ireland?

Chairman

I ask Ms McAdam to expand on her comments.

Ms Janice McAdam

It was a very general point about how the arts enhance Ireland's reputation abroad. Last year's Imagine Ireland festival was a tremendous example of a relatively small investment reaping huge reward with millions of dollars' worth of good profile for Ireland. In terms of arts working with business, those of us in the arts have got better at understanding our value. Mr. White can speak about this because Ulster Bank used to sponsor the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Mr. Willie White

We came to the end of that relationship, which for as long as it lasted was mutually rewarding. It prolonged it by extending it from the original three years to five years. Business to Arts and the Dublin Theatre Festival share an office. I know its people very well personally as well as professionally and we have considerable interaction with them. It is about encouraging arts organisations not to be so shy, to be confident about the value they create and to be able to share that story with business organisations. Even in an economic climate such as this one where there is not as much money as there was in 2007 and 2008, we are finding that businesses are interested in being part of good news stories such as the Dublin Theatre Festival, which has a very high profile at a particular time of the year.

I will digress somewhat regarding Imagine Ireland and research. In rationalising the public services, consideration is being given to engulfing or amalgamating Culture Ireland possibly into the Department or into the Arts Council. Neither of these seems to be a good idea. It does a very good job and a different job from those other two bodies for a relatively small investment. This is something that can be measured in column inches. It is a good news story coming from Ireland. In the same newspaper as Paul Krugman wrote "Erin go broke", above the colour photograph one can see all the amazing cultural output that is being brought over to America under the auspices of Imagine Ireland.

We cannot answer in detail on it. I assume there has been an evaluation of it. The programme ran until the end of last year. It has not gone away. That was when there was a particularly strong emphasis on America, but Culture Ireland continues to do its work around the world.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

I wish to put on the record that I am a founding member of the National Campaign for the Arts, which I support through funding and I do not want to talk to myself. While it is not in the remit of the committee, we need to be cognisant - I know we have written to the Minister - of the bodies to be rationalised, amalgamated or abolished within the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. One section of our work programme dealt with An Coimisinéir Teanga being amalgamated into the Office of the Ombudsman. Culture Ireland is also under serious threat and is scheduled for critical review. The clerk to the committee can correct me but we wrote to the Minister to clarify the status of Culture Ireland. There are other significant proposals, including amalgamating IMMA, the National Gallery and the Crawford Art Gallery. All are significant policy initiatives by the Minister or the Department sometimes made for financial reasons and sometimes for ideological reasons. At a later stage this committee should review that.

It is clear that in any other sector including agrifood, tourism and farming, a full body of research is done in all Departments, which in itself influences policy making and then further influences the investment of taxpayers' money. There is no global evidence where one could review metrics and value - I mean that in a non-economic way. Mr. White mentioned that the last public one was in 2006, which is a generation ago. When representatives of the Department appear before the committee next week we should ascertain whether it has a research and policy unit. This is not about money anymore. The cutbacks are happening and while we are very resilient, it is about how policy making informs funding decisions. That is a matter Ms Considine constantly mentions. The committee should review the matter before we make any recommendation.

Mr. Willie White

Measurement can be a challenge. Two things need to be measured, one of which is excellence. It is the business of the Arts Council to promote artistic excellence and make the best decisions it can according to its expertise to fund certain projects. Then there is access. I direct members back to the ESRI report. The Chairman mentioned that certain very disadvantaged sections of the population may have a greater opportunity to access the arts, but there is a swathe of people in the middle who have none at all. According to the ESRI report, some people do not even go to the cinema. It is not about high art, opera and gigs - they do not go out at all and are disenfranchised from the cultural life of the country.

If members are wondering what the gaps are, including some data about participation, and then at the same time wondering what the Arts Council does to promote excellence, I would caution legislators in general about going down the road of instrumentalism. We can certainly look at the experience in the UK where arts were employed to keep people in schools, stop recidivism and so on. That is very specifically a different context from that of the Arts Council. The Arts Council should not get directed into such work. We know that the Arts Council is part of the picture.

As legislators, members of the committee care about citizens and the future. We need to fill the gap with a vision for the lives our citizens will have. Decisions are going to be taken now that will shape the future of the country and the lives of the people living here. For the outcomes it produces, €100 million is a relatively modest amount of money. Those of us who work in the arts and feel very strongly that what we do is very important, cannot argue on the basis of emotion. We need facts, figures and an evidence base that we are lacking at the moment in order to continue to make that case.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

I am delighted to see the representatives of the National Campaign for the Arts here. As Senator Mac Conghail "fessed" up, I had also better "fess" up. I have been associated with the National Campaign for the Arts in recent years.

Senator Fiach Mac Conghail

Do we have a quorum so?

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

I wish to put on the record the initiative taken by Senator Mac Conghail, Theatre Forum, IMMA and all the others who came together. I do not want to name names or there could be trouble. It was a fantastic initiative done on a voluntary basis to try to advocate when those appalling proposals were made in 2009. It has galvanised people to think about the value of arts to our society. Mr. White is right that it is ultimately about the quality of life. People of all ages are entitled to have arts experiences whatever they are. If we do not expose our young children to them, they will be doubly disenfranchised because if they are not exposed to them as young children, they certainly will not do it as adults. Even if the facilities exist for them to participate, they just will not feel it is something for them. The challenge for the witnesses and for members of the committee is to ensure that the research, which everybody mentioned, is completed. In our deliberations we have found that while considerable research exists, it has not been brought together, a matter we will address when we publish our report.

Measuring what is being done and the outputs for society is a big challenge. The investment being made by both Departments has really been exposed through these deliberations and I completely agree with the witnesses' recommendations. It would be very valuable and even transformative if they were implemented. It is certainly something for which we can push. I am very concerned about the strategy Ms Considine mentioned regarding Linenhall. Based on my experience in Offaly, there was a constraint in a previous strategy in only matching the funding the local authorities put in. That was terribly destructive because it meant the local authorities were disadvantaged to start with because they were not in a position to raise funding through rates and thereby put more money into the programmes in which they wanted to invest. Then the Arts Council was depriving them even further. I can possibly see where it was coming from in terms of encouraging local authorities to invest more. However, if they did not have the means they could not do it. Moving away from it was very positive. If this ends up being something similar, I do not see it working. I agree with the suggestion to challenge both of the Departments to outline what they will do if this is its effect. It has been fantastic to see the type of co-operation in putting together all the different strands in the campaign. The challenge is to get people who are used to doing their own thing to talk about what they are doing so that people will know about it. The challenges they face include a lack of income. Even though they love what they are doing, they need support. How is the campaign getting over that issue? I have found it difficult to get some people to talk about such matters. It is quite challenging to do so. Have the arts been held back somewhat because people went off to do their work without talking about how valuable grants were, in addition to finding space to work in, selling work and engaging with communities?

Ms Janice McAdam

I thank the committee members for their lovely points about the NCFA and their support for our work. One of the challenges facing the NCFA is to reach individual artists who are somewhat cut off from the core of Arts Council funding and are investing in making their own work. They may feel a bit isolated, so how do we get them involved in the campaign and hear their voices? We have been working hard on that, particularly with the visual arts sector where that is particularly true. We have mobilised much more easily within the theatre and performing arts sectors because there is a network of arts centres and because the Theatre Forum has been so involved in the campaign.

Since March 2011, I have been employed two days a week on the outreach element of our work. It is one of the things we saw the value of last year. Outreach comprises getting out to the constituencies and talking to people there. We need to do our own kind of lobbying and capacity building within our own sector.

The other challenge for us is fund-raising because we are a voluntary organisation and have to raise our own money, which we do.

Mr. Willie White

People have different abilities when it comes to participation, but what has kept the campaign coherent is the fact that we are not concentrating on money but on the values that will deliver that money. At times, people focus on their own particular problems, whether financial or geographical. However, because we believe in the things for which the campaign stands, we can all row in behind it. We can also have discussions with various funding bodies on the merits of our own projects. It is about values. If it was prompted by the report of an bord snip nua it was because no such value existed. That which we thought was well established, secured and agreed upon proved to be vulnerable. The report stated that certain things, which we assumed were mandatory, could be done away with, so we focused on the values involved.

Ms Janice McAdam

That is the alarming thing because in 2009 we worked so hard to secure Culture Ireland as part of the cultural infrastructure and all those things we held dear, but it looks like they are now vulnerable once again. We cannot seem to find a way to influence those decisions.

Mr. Willie White

Ultimately, having a reason for what one does will get one more than not having money to do it. For those people who are not confident in representing their practice, they at least need to be sure that somebody else is doing it well on their behalf.

Ms Mona Considine

My view is that a number of projects the committee discussed in the last few sessions are not Arts Council-driven or local authority-driven, but community-driven. These people are giving their time voluntarily. The annual Aisling children's arts festival has been going since 1999 and it is run by a voluntary committee. The organisers give of their time and get the job done.

Theatres such as the Linenhall, Backstage Theatre - which is my own venue - Siamsa Tire in Tralee and Draíocht in Drogheda are affected by this strategy on local authority funding. They are the oldest regional theatres in the country and are community-driven. They were built by their local communities, not by the local authority. They were built because there was a rich tradition of theatre in the communities, yet their very future is now being threatened.

Chairman

With that, I will conclude this part of our consideration of the topic. I wish to thank the witnesses for appearing before the joint committee this afternoon. I thank them specifically for their presentation and the recommendations it contained. As we have said to other groups that have come before the committee, if you have further thoughts, recommendations or ideas you wish to submit, please do so. We will be concluding this module next week, after which we will move to compile our research and publish our report before the summer recess. We have a couple of reports to get out.

I appreciate the witnesses for coming here as well as the frankness of the discussion and for having a list of recommendations. It makes our job a lot easier in terms of having something to work towards. I wish to thank Ms Janice McAdam, Ms Mona Considine and Mr. Willie White for assisting us in our deliberations today. They are now excused.

That concludes this stage of our consideration of this topic. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The joint committee adjourned at 4.55 p.m. until 2.15 p.m. on Tuesday, 24 April 2012.