Arts Policy
Dail Éireann — 2021-06-22
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Catherine Connolly (IND), Galway West

The best legacy we would all like to see would be a basic income for artists. We think of the amount of money that went into Galway 2020, without a basic income for artists. That issue will come up later in another question.
On buildings, I would love to see what we are getting from Galway 2020. Has progress been made on the An Post building? I think it has but the Minister might clarify that. We have a former industrial school which has remained vacant since 2009, although there is a dispute as to whether it was 2011. That is the wonderful Lenaboy site, which is lying idle. It formed part of the redress from the nuns; it was not a gift but part of the redress.
My problem with this is the legacy seems to be an afterthought, like the Irish language. The Irish language officer was an afterthought and the first person to be let go when the trouble descended on Galway 2020. I would have thought the legacy would be an integral part of Galway 2020, not something that came from pressure from Deputies and other sources when a committee was finally set up to determine what the legacy would be.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-06-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:25+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-06-22