Developing first national cultural policy is key - Humphreys

The Minister for Arts wants to kickstart a countrywide conversation on development of Ireland’s first national cultural policy, she said on Friday.

Heather Humphreys said there would be no better time to unveil a new cultural framework than in 2016, the centenary year of the Easter Rising when everything "changed, changed utterly" and Yeats's terrible beauty was born.

A symposium is to be held next October to create the policy, the Minister said.

Speaking at the launch of a discussion document on the policy in Smock Alley, Dublin’s oldest - and paradoxically newest - theatre, the Minister said the document posed a series of questions about how resources should be prioritised and artists and creative workers supported.

“This is the first time that everyone will have an opportunity to make their views known about why our culture is so important and what we want to achieve over the next decade,” the Minister told a gathering of “stakeholders”.

Little mention of funding

While there was much talk of those stakeholders’ involvement, there was very little mention of the prospect of enhanced State funding for the arts.

At the heart of the process - dubbed Culture 2025 - will be the creation of a national policy to “set high-level aims for the arts and culture sector over the next decade”.

A series of regional meetings will be held over the next two months “to facilitate debate and discussion amongst stakeholders and interested parties in the arts and cultural sector”, the Minister said.

After the discussions there will be a one-day symposium at Dublin Castle in early October to close the consultation process. It is envisaged a final policy will be published early next year.

‘Aim high’

“If we want to protect and promote our unique and varied culture, and encourage new cultural forms to flourish, we need to aim high,” Ms Humphreys said.

“I hope Culture 2025 can help create a platform for bringing together the numerous local, regional and national cultural entities so they can share best practice and look at new ways of working together.”

She said the development of our first ever cultural policy should be seen “as an opportunity to increase participation in the arts across all strands of society” which would examine ways in which culture “can help to build a more inclusive society”.