2026-01-20

132. Deputy Joanna Byrne asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport the steps he will take to ensure stronger oversight, better value for money and improved transparency in the use of public funds across the arts, culture, and media sectors (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4110/26]

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. The public accounts committee published a report last November in respect of the 2023 appropriation account for Vote 33, which was the then Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, together with the 2023 financial statement of the Arts Council and the National Gallery of Ireland. In the report, the committee identified governance and oversight concerns across the Department and its agencies, including the Arts Council and the National Gallery. I understand the Minister for public expenditure will shortly issue his formal reply to the committee on the report. I am committed to ensuring the highest standards of oversight, value for money and transparency. I have acted to address the issues identified in the report. These include the appointment of an expert advisory committee in regard to the Arts Council whose report I brought to the Government today; engagement with the Institute of Public Administration to provide expert independent advice around governance and oversight to my Department; and establishing a dedicated State body governance unit within the Department. Transparency regarding departmental use of funds is ensured via publication of the annual budget books, the annual Revised Estimate and the annual appropriation account, as audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Each of these bodies under the aegis of the Department produces its own annual report and accounts, which are subject to audit and laid before both Houses. The Department and the bodies under its aegis, where relevant, appear before the public accounts committee and both Joint and Select Committees on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport. My Department continues to advance work to improve oversight and governance of the State bodes under its aegis. This will ensure the highest robust, comprehensive, transparent and efficient oversight and governance framework for all those bodies, consistent with my commitment to ensuring that State bodies operate with accountability, integrity and efficiency. In addition, the Department has completed an evaluation of the Department's performance information system, as recommended in the 2023 report on the accounts of the public services issued by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Guidance and training on the value of performance information and approach to choosing robust indicators has been provided for all staff. These steps, together with ongoing compliance within procurement and appraisal guidelines, will help to ensure the Department delivers value for money.

I am a member of the public accounts committee. I am glad the Minister mentioned the report we published in November. The highlights of that were the capital underspend in 2023; the National Gallery's X-ray equipment; the Art Council's failed IT project; departmental oversight and governance failures; decline in the RTÉ licence fee income and emergency funding; performance measurement deficiencies; the Art Council's grant funding; and strategic funding transparency. It is a laundry list of failures of oversight and management by the Government that has dominated hours of debates in this Chamber and at multiple committees. These were only the 2023 scandals. I ask for a commitment that we will not see a repeat of this in the 2024 reports.

What the Deputy has seen from me so far is that once I become aware of the issue with the Art Council and the issues in the National Gallery, I dealt with them, and I did so fairly comprehensively. The report on the Arts Council was published today. It runs to 245 pages and contains well in excess of 190 recommendations. There are recommendations for all Departments, including my Department, State bodies and the Arts Council. Regarding the issue with the National Gallery, we dealt with that. The X-ray scanner went into use before Christmas. Regarding capital underspend, I have addressed this issue with the Deputy and Deputy Ó Snodaigh previously. The problem we have with many of the buildings housing the national cultural institutions is that they are not straightforward buildings like Leinster House. We have to go through a difficult and protracted procurement system. If we did not do so, we would be accused of jumping the gun and not obeying procurement rules or adhering to the public spending code. Based on the changes we have made in 2025, we will see a far better outcome regarding capital output in 2026.

That is a heartening response. I will point out that there are 149 recommendations in the report dealing with one entity. We sincerely hope we will not have to have reports on all these bodies with similar recommendations. If we are learning from that going forward, that is warmly welcomed.

I hope the Deputy had a chance to look at the report. It took me from 5 January until today to get in under the bonnet of it. Not all 149 recommendations are necessarily attributable to the Arts Council alone. There is an awful lot in the report from which other agencies can learn as well. Similar issues have arisen in other bodies, as I know from my time on the public accounts committee. One of the greatest learnings of the report is that small bodies such as the Arts Council sometimes expect to deliver once-in-a-lifetime projects and they do not have the experience to do so. The failings were laid bare in this case. The report will make important reading, not only for the Arts Council but for other State agencies and Government Departments.