Arts and Culture
The Green Party Arts and Culture Policy advocates measures so that every Irish citizen and resident increase their engagement with Irish arts and our rich heritage and develop their full creative potential within equitable, healthy, and sustaining environments.
Our policy highly values Irish culture, nationally and internationally in its continued commitment to develop thriving, equitable and sustainable Arts, Heritage and Creative Industry sectors.
Culture, encompassing the arts and creative industries, offers citizens and residents vital and inclusive opportunities to reflect and imagine better ways to live. Thus, our policy builds on international Green Party foundational ecological values to advocate the civil society UNESCO-endorsed Earth Charter (2000) as the overarching vision and integrated values education framework to guide Ireland’s arts, heritage and creative sectors in coordinating inclusive creative activities to inspire citizens and residents to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2015).
To support the immense and urgent cultural shift to an equitable, sustainable era, the Green Party Arts and Culture Policy recognises culture’s important role as a pillar of sustainability.
Increasing eco-literacy across arts, heritage and creative industry sectors with the Earth Charter (recognised by the UNESCO Chair for Education for Sustainable Development, ESD) empowers the arts and culture sectors’ crucial leadership role to creatively and inclusively inspire diverse audiences and communities about the integrated social and environmental principles needed for a just transition and for enduring personal, collective, planetary and intergenerational wellbeing.
Advocating the people’s Earth Charter (2000) as a civil society and UNESCO-endorsed ethical and systems literacy education framework to guide inclusive and coordinated creative responses to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2015) and strategic cultural investment priorities of the National Development Plan.
Supporting arts, heritage and creative industry sectors in their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint by building on the work being done by the Green Arts Initiative Ireland.
Enabling artists and arts workers to pursue their careers with dignity by advancing the innovative BIA (Basic Income for Artists) scheme and continuing to support wellbeing supports initiatives, Safe to Create and Minding Creative Minds.
Providing appropriate pay and conditions for artists and arts workers and sustainable funding for arts venues.
Establishing a mechanism for evaluating, reviewing and improving Irish government agencies involved in the funding and development of the arts.
Supporting arts and culture in the community with business grants, investment in physical infrastructure, and developing night-time cultural activities.
Ensuring access to the arts for all by initiating a strategy and plan to set the goals for the Arts support programmes that can be provided by the State.
Providing assistance to the arts sector by introducing a State indemnity insurance scheme, and continuing the Section 481 tax incentives for the industry beyond 2024.
Policy passed: June 2023
UN Sustainable Development Goals: 4, 8, 9, 11, 16
