Urban Development Dail Éireann — 2026-01-20 ============================================================ Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire There is an incredible disconnect between the supposed aspirations of the Dublin task force and the actuality. As has already been mentioned, it is absolutely shocking that The Complex, a vibrant space across all the arts disciplines which provided direct employment for about 30 or 40 people and had about 250 artists operating out of it, is gone for the lack of €6 million from the Government. That is all it asked for. I note that seven of our leading actors have written a letter to The Irish Times in the past week saying that the lack of core and multi-annual funding for theatre companies has had a devastating effect on the ability of actors to produce good theatre. A central part of Dublin's identity and reputation is being decimated essentially because of a neoliberal funding model for theatre. What is the Taoiseach going to do about these things? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-20