Tourism, culture and sport are fundamental to irish society and can help drive our economic recovery- upton
Issued : Saturday 17 April, 2010
I welcome the opportunity to respond to the motions presented here today.
The Department has recently been renamed by the Government as Tourism, Culture and Sport. As usual it seems that this is as much innovation and interest that this out-of-ideas, out-of-energy and out-of-time Government can muster for these vital areas. Since 1997 the Department, in its various different forms, has been considered the "Ministry for Fun", the best place to organise a junket from, or the Department of Demotion. Frankly I find this kind of disrespect and arrogance insulting to the areas that this Ministry is supposed to represent, but no surprise from a Party that has come to view power not as a privilege but as a right bestowed on them because DeValera, Haughey and Ahern ordained it so.
Tourism, Culture and Sport are fundamental to the very core of our identity and are deeply interlinked. Parishes and villages oftentimes define themselves based on the local GAA team. Provinces can define themselves by their rugby, such as last weekend in the Sportsground. Our artistic heritage is vested in the "stony grey soil", "the bee loud glade" or "the still waters running deep along the embankment walls" of our countryside. Global perception of Ireland is manifestly affected by our artistic and sporting output. Tourism provides more jobs than agriculture or financial services and it does so in some of the most remote areas of the country, where the stark beauty of our country is brought into sharp focus such as at Inisbofin, Clonmacnoise or Beara. Sport and Culture attract hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors into the country annually.
I welcome the Government's decision to retain the Department, albeit with an unnecessary rebranding. I welcome Mary Hanafin to the Department and I do hope she might inject some much needed initiative into the area. The initial signs are, however, not good. The Minister seems happy to hide behind the various semi state bodies and the cross cutting nature of the Department and not get stuck into the serious problems. The Horse and Greyhound Fund has been transferred to Agriculture, but there is nothing to stop the Minister from championing Labour's proposals around the Cabinet table. As the speakers have stated, the Labour Party has a offered a solution in our document, Raising the Stakes, which provides a secure financial footing for the horse and greyhound industries on a long term substantial basis without the need for direct exchequer funding to be taken from schools or hospitals to support the industry. Our proposal means that every bookmaking operation, regardless of whether it is on the main street, over the phone or on the internet, will pay the same betting levy which will be used to support the industries as well as other sports and will offer funding to organisations that deal with people with gambling problems.
As the former Indian Prime Minister Nehru remarked "Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit." Culture and the Arts permeate every facet of Irish life from a small festival in Bellmullet to the senior citizens arts group in Crumlin, from a music festival in Tullamore to a literary pub crawl in Dublin. The artist's tax exemption was first introduced in the 1960's as a means of assisting new and struggling artists. This scheme was never intended to allow a former Taoiseach to claim tax relief, no matter how inventive his memoirs were. It was never meant to allow mega rock groups to write off their taxes whilst offering citizens' and government advice on how to save the world. It was designed to help the newly qualified artists from places such as NCAD in my constituency or struggling artists up and down the country. What the Labour Party proposes is that the Artists tax Exemption should be capped at €50,000 a year but with a capacity to spread income over a period of years in recognition that some artists such as writers may only secure an income once every couple of years. This will ensure that the tax relief is there for those who deserve it, not those with the best accountants.
Delegates the Labour Party cares about Tourism, Culture and Sport. We will shortly launch our tourism policy and this will be followed by our documents on Sport and Culture. In each case we will show that the Labour Party values these areas, we have new ideas that can be implemented without breaking the bank and without following the same tired old routes worn down by Fianna Fail and the Green Party. Delegates, a vote for Labour is a vote for Tourism, Culture and Sport. I commend these motions to the conference.
