Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 September 2023
388. Deputy Jim O'Callaghan asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media if consideration has been given to using the Shared Island Initiative to fund cross-Border arts initiatives. [39791/23]
View answerAs provided for in the Programme for Government, the Shared Island initiative aims to harness the full potential of the Good Friday Agreement to enhance cooperation, connection and mutual understanding on the island and engage with all communities and traditions to build consensus around a shared future. This involves:
• unprecedented cooperative all-island investment through the €1billion Shared Island Fund;
• engaging with all communities on how practically we can better share the island into the future, through the Shared Island dialogue series; and,
• providing a stronger evidence base and analysis of the whole island, through a programme of published research.
This initiative is implemented on a whole of Government basis, with coordination through the Department of the Taoiseach.
Through the Shared Island dialogue series the Government is engaging with people across the island in order to hear their views on a range of common concerns, on how best to work across communities and borders for a shared future, in practical, meaningful ways. Arts and Culture on a Shared Island was the twelfth dialogue in the series. Over 200 people attended the hybrid event which took place on 13th October 2022 in Mandela Hall, Queen’s University, Belfast. I, along with the then Northern Ireland Minister for Communities Deirdre Hargey MLA provided the opening addresses in advance of two panel discussions;
• Panel 1: Arts & culture on a shared island - challenges & opportunities
• Panel 2: Building Cultural and Creative Communities
This dialogue provided a platform for artists, musicians, writers, members of cultural and creative community organisations, and government agencies North and South to discuss shared challenges and opportunities facing the arts and cultural sector across the island. The full report of the dialogue can be found at: www.gov.ie/en/publication/217a3-shared-island-dialogue/#arts-culture-on-a-shared-island
As part of the overall investment programme, the Taoiseach announced a Shared Island dimension to the Creative Ireland Programme 2023-2027 in December 2022. In this regard, a number of cross-border arts and culture projects are currently ongoing across Creative Youth, Creative Communities and Creative Climate Action and Sustainability.
These include;
• Cruinniú na nÓg , the national day of creativity for children and young people, included a number of projects on an all island basis with cross community events connecting children and young people from both sides of the border;
• Creative Communities on a Shared Island will enable local authorities to undertake collaborative projects that connect people to people and communities to communities using creativity as a tool for transformation. The successful projects will be announced before the end of the year;
• Under Creative Youth, a one-year creative writing initiative led by Fighting Words has been established in the border region;
• Creative Climate Action Fund II : Agents of Change is supporting 3 shared Island initiatives that support creative and cultural projects that build awareness around climate change;
• The Creative Brain Week programme included one day exploring the role of creativity as a response to the impacts of conflict on mental health and wellbeing, drawing on experience from the Island of Ireland and internationally.
The Arts Council and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland are also co-operating through the Shared Island Arts Investment. The objective of the initiative is to complement and enable programme funding by the two Arts Councils with capital investment in projects including residential and studio spaces for cross-border writer artistic and traditional music collaborations; and digitisation and curation of film, music and architectural archives on an island-wide basis.
I will continue to consider opportunities for further co-operation in arts and culture under Shared Island as the initiative develops.
