Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 July 2020
21. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if additional supports will be considered for local communities to hold replacement events in view of the cancellation of a number of festivals and other cultural events in County Clare in recent months; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17286/20]
View answerI congratulate the three Ministers on the new roles they are undertaking and have every confidence they will do a good job.
I want to ask about cancelled events and festivals this summer. There have been many cancellations. In my county, the famous Lisdoonvarna matchmaking festival, Willie Clancy week, the Feakle festival, the Scariff Harbour festival and Consairtín, which is Ireland's national convention for concertina players, have been cancelled and have incurred debts. There will be no events this year. Will the Minister engage with them to ensure there is a funding stream available to them so that they can restart at the earliest opportunity in 2021?
I thank the Deputy for his good wishes and look forward to working with him and all other Deputies in the House. My Department runs a small-scale local festivals and summer school scheme. Funding available under the scheme is typically capped at €5,000. Full details of the scheme are available from my Department's website. Applications for 2020 closed on 24 April and details of allocations may also be found on the website.
There were no applications from County Clare to my Department's 2020 small-scale local festivals and summer schools scheme. The Arts Council funds a number of festivals in County Clare under its festival investment scheme. All funding decisions can be viewed on the Arts Council website.
The list of festivals that the Arts Council funded in County Clare in 2019, under its programme festival scheme, included funding of €3,000 for the Feakle International Traditional Musical Festival. Also under the scheme, Consairtín 2019, the National Concertina Convention, received €5,000, Ennis Book Club Festival received €25,500, Iniscealtra Arts Festival received €9,500, Killaloe Chamber Music Festival received €16,000, Oidhreacht an Chlair received €3,467 for the Seventh Annual Concertina Cruinniú and Sixmilebridge Folk Club received €5,000 for the Shannonside Winter Music Festival.
It is important to note that, under the Arts Act, the Arts Council is statutorily independent in its funding decisions. Therefore, neither my officials nor I have any input into the disbursement of funding.
Fáilte Ireland provides support to large-scale festivals and participative events through its national programme. At the start of the Covid-19 crisis, Fáilte Ireland immediately paid 50% of the festivals' agreed funding within the programme. Fáilte Ireland is working with these festivals to establish whether they will go ahead and, where appropriate, helping to develop revised programming. The remainder of the funding will be provided based on these revised programmes. Fáilte Ireland also administers a regional festivals programme and funding has been paid in full to the local authorities. It also runs an innovation programme for new festivals but this programme has been temporarily suspended and no new applications are being considered at present.
I thank the Minister and appreciate her reply. There is a domino effect to the cancellation of many of these events. Some of these events have tie-ins with local charities and community groups. For example, Ennistymon Community Hospital, Conradh na Gaeilge, West Clare Mental Health Association and Clare GAA are beneficiaries. A trickle-on funding stream is lost as a result of these festivals being cancelled. It has put the county on a downer because these were the stand-out festivals of the spring and summer months that brought people west of the Shannon into County Clare. Clare is famous for its traditional music. I am glad to hear that the Department is committed to working with these groups. They will carry a debt across this autumn and winter and we need to make it possible for these events to run successfully in 2021.
I wish to ask whether the Minister has any plans for Shannon Heritage sites because they are intrinsic to tourism in County Clare. As the Minister knows, those sites will close at the end of August. Those sites employ 350 people, 145 of them full time. They are iconic and key sites in the region. People visit Clare to see those sites and it makes no commercial sense to close them. We are now being told by management that €4 million has been requested from the Government to keep the sites open and I hope the Minister can offer some clarity on that matter.
I assure the Deputy that I am acutely aware of the value of local festivals, their links to the community from a cultural perspective and how they can boost the tourism sector and local economies. As I said, many festivals have had to cancel this year's events and we must look at how we can support those types of events in the future. That issue will be examined by the task force. We must reimagine how we do these things. I will ask my officials to engage with the Deputy on the Shannon Heritage sites and answer his question in writing.
Deputy Pearse Doherty wants to come in.
I agree with Deputy Cathal Crowe on this matter. I am the chairperson of Sult Festival, a music festival in Gweedore in County Donegal that should have run for its third year last week. The festival has grown to cost us, as a non-profit organisation, in the region of €150,000. The festival has been cancelled and we cannot claim back thousands of euro that has been spent. We have not been able to benefit from Fáilte Ireland grants or supports because of the criteria in terms of the number of bed nights. There must be supports available for festivals that have spent large amounts of money. That money is now lost to them. Otherwise, we will lose community festivals that are a unique fabric of rural Ireland should they be unable to go on in the future. I ask the Minister whether she intends to come up with a plan or scheme to support music festivals of that nature which have lost considerable amounts of money and whose ability to function in the future could be in jeopardy without additional support.
I agree with the Deputy that these festivals are part of the unique fabric of rural Ireland. The Arts Council is currently accepting applications for funding under round 1 of the festivals investment scheme for festivals taking place between January and June of next year. There are three bands of funding available: band A provides funding up to €7,000; band B provides funding of between €7,000 and €20,000; and band C provides funding of between €20,000 and €35,000. The closing date for applications for further supports is 5.30 p.m. on Thursday, 23 July. I bring that to the Deputy's attention.
The festivals and events industry, and the broader tourism sector, are facing severe limitations and challenges in these exceptional times. Therefore, Fáilte Ireland is working to redefine the scope of the festivals innovation programme into the future. For that reason, the programme has been temporarily suspended and no applications are being considered but that is because we are trying to reinvent how it can be done and improve the scope of the programme.
