Michelle Mulherin
Ceist:6. Deputy Michelle Mulherin asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the status of the consultation process for Culture 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39548/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraThursday, 12 November 2015
Ceisteanna (6)
Freagraí ó Béal (6 píosaí cainte)
I would welcome an update on the consultation process for Culture 2025. This is a very important undertaking and body of work. It is very timely. We are all aware of our economic woes but, ironically, it is at times when people are under pressure that we can focus most on what is important about our culture and not only on the superficial. Our society is multicultural. Sometimes people can feel threatened by other cultures, so it is very important to underpin our culture and embrace other people in a spirit of inclusiveness. It is important for the reinforcement of identity, both historically and in a contemporary sense, for creative industries and because of its potential for tourism. I welcome the Minister's undertaking.
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I congratulate the author Kevin Barry on winning the Goldsmiths Prize for literature for his new novel, Beatlebone. This follows his IMPAC award for City of Bohane. Kevin is truly one of our great contemporary writers and I am delighted for him.
At a meeting on 20 June 2014, the Government approved the drafting of a national cultural policy, Culture 2025, which will set out the high-level aims and policies of the Government in this area in the period up to 2025. The broad aim of Culture 2025 will be to reinforce the crucial role of culture in society by supporting the cultural sector and providing conditions that will allow the sector to develop and flourish across all areas of society. Culture 2025 will seek to reflect the modern multicultural Ireland and will be uplifting, accessible, relevant and easy to communicate. To facilitate public consultation on the proposed policy, my Department published a discussion document on 8 August 2015. It followed this up by holding a series of local workshops to enable people across the country to have their views heard. Meetings took place in Cavan, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Kilkenny and Dublin. The Dublin event followed the participative world café model and was held under the open public debates programme. More than 600 people have attended the consultation events, and more than 200 written submissions have been received. The closing date for receipt of submissions was 31 October 2015. My Department also established both an expert group and a steering group made up of cultural stakeholders who are having an input into the consultation and drafting process. The feedback from the regional meetings and the submissions received will now be examined in detail as part of the process of drafting the cultural policy. I intend that this will be a high-level and living document to set out the framework of cultural policy for the next decade. I will submit the policy document to Government in due course, with the intention of publishing it early in 2016.
I am delighted to hear the progress that has been made. I like the description of it as a living document, because our culture is living. One issue that is of interest and that is very exciting for many of us in rural areas is our built cultural heritage, which we can still see much of. Moore Street and Dublin have been discussed, but there are many early Christian heritage buildings in Mayo. I would like the document to include cultural heritage hubs, in which we can look at our culture not only historically but in a contemporary fashion, perhaps through the arts. In Mayo, there is a tradition of French Mayo, which commemorates the 1798 landings. There is a lot of history around that. In my town, we are developing a Mary Robinson centre to look at contemporary issues worldwide. We also have the Jackie Clarke library, and I feel this would dovetail very well with Culture 2025. Strategic planning around the empowerment of cultural hubs should be part of the plan for supporting our culture in the future.
Our cultural policy will encompass both our built and natural heritage, because it is all part of what we are. We can look at cultural hubs because it is something that will probably come through the consultation process. I have not had an opportunity yet to look at all the submissions as the process finished at the end of October 2015. It has been a very open process and we have gone right around the country to the different centres I mentioned and have asked their views. I am interested in how we protect and enrich our culture and how we embrace technology, because it will have an impact upon our culture. We need to look at all those areas and be ready and have this policy in place. This is the first time I have ever had a cultural policy, and I want to set high-level aims to protect and enrich our culture and to embrace other cultures. That is very important, because the coming of other cultures helps us to enrich our own culture.
The idea of the hub is that even though we all share similarities in terms of our traditions, culture and background, there are unique defining histories in different parts of the country, for example, the 1798 landings in Mayo.
The more we focus on that, and give a depth and a study to it, the more we make it interesting for tourists, and it also reinforces our own sense of identity or pride of place. That is the attraction we have, and the more exploration and supports we have for that, the more interface there will be. We have many experts who know a lot about these things. It is a question of making the information, the knowledge and the appreciation of it more readily available to ourselves and to tourists. This would reinforce our tourism industry going forward as well as safeguarding our cultural heritage.
It is something we can look at. A cultural hub relates to a specific area. The Deputy is moving into the area of tourism, where we have the Wild Atlantic Way and now Ireland's Ancient East. Perhaps we can have something along those lines, given that different areas have unique connections to culture that other areas do not have. We can certainly look at it.