A chara, – I refer to your Editorial (February 22nd) and the McCarthy report recommendation for a critical examination of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. I propose the Government look at models of best practice internationally and establish a new department of cultural and creative industries to harness the potential of the collective cultural and creative resources across the island, and create a new policy framework relevant to the needs of the 21st century.
The cultural and creative industries are increasingly important components of modern post-industrial knowledge-based economies. While the Irish Government’s smart economy recognises the important role culture and the creative industries can play in our national recovery, it could be argued that the sector is still poorly understood and fragmented and lacking in the raw data that that is required for effective policymaking.
Across the world, cultural mapping has become the favoured approach at national level for governments to study and understand their cultural and creative industry sectors before making policy decisions. Unesco has been providing governments with the tools necessary to study this sector and to encourage countries to prioritise this field of research.
One of the benefits of establishing a department of cultural and creative industries would be to start this exercise, making a comprehensive effort to identify all relevant cultural economic activities, organisations and employment. At the end of the exercise, we would be able to identify suitable public policies to ensure maximum benefit to the taxpayer. – Is mise,
GRÁINNE MILLAR,
Head of Cultural Development,
Temple Bar Cultural Trust,
East Essex Street,
Temple Bar, Dublin 2.