Culture Policy
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

I am a little disappointed we do not have the arts Minister in the House. With all due respect to Deputy Buttimer, he is a Minister of State at a Department that has nothing to do with this.
Our identity as a country, our history and our heritage are totally tied up with culture and the arts.
Probably more than most countries, our identity and reputation internationally are linked to the arts and music. We have an amazing pool of artists, poets, writers, musicians and dancers. You can go through the list. Nowhere exemplifies that more than an institution such as The Complex, which has been in the north inner city for 17 years. The north inner city, and the northside of Dublin city generally, does not have much by way of arts venues. As has been referenced by Deputy Sherlock, many of these spaces have closed down. There are 30 artists in residence in The Complex. Hundreds of musicians, artists and so on use it. There have been 180 events just this year in The Complex. There are staff and hundreds of people whose employment is linked to The Complex. They are going to be evicted and effectively closed down in early January for the want of €6 million. The Complex does not even need that money immediately. It will need it over four years. It needs a commitment from the Government to save this venue. That is a small amount of money for a Government that has a big budget surplus. The Complex is looking for a commitment. It does not want a game of pass-the-parcel between the Department of arts, the Department of Finance and the Office of Public Works, OPW. It wants a commitment to work with the other agencies, including Dublin City Council, the Department of arts and the other relevant Departments. It engaged with the former Deputy, Paschal Donohoe, when he was Minister for Finance, and the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Chambers, and believed it was going to get the help it needed, but it is now facing D-day. A crisis meeting is happening tonight. It has huge local support. I ask the Minister of State to please intervene and save The Complex.

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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/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11