Significant progress has been made in drafting the first National Cultural Policy - Culture 2025. This followed a major public consultation process in 2015, including a national cultural workshop held in October at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Work by my Department, the expert steering group and a wider expert committee continued on the document in early 2016 and is currently on-going. This expert committee has broad representation across arts and cultural interests.
The Programme for a Partnership Government commits to the publication of Culture 2025 as a priority. As I have stated previously, this first such policy will be a living document and will form the basis of an on-going dialogue with all who are interested in cultural policy. My Department is continuing to consider inputs on the draft document from the Steering and Expert Groups which I established and I expect to forward a draft for consideration to the relevant Oireachtas Committee shortly.
It should be noted that this will not be a costed plan for the Arts but a much wider framework policy to guide future Government action across the cultural sector, and will be followed by more detail actions for implementation.