asked the Taoiseach if he will consider the introduction of changes in regulations to establish the Irish National Ballet Company on the same footing with his Department as the National Concert Hall, or the Royal Hospital Kilmainham as distinct from the present status where the National Ballet Company operates through the Arts Council.

I do not propose to make any changes in the present situation.

It was hardly worth the Taoiseach's while standing up to read that.

As the Taoiseach is aware, the Arts Council have withdrawn all grants from the Irish National Ballet Company which amounts to a deliberate killing of the company. In view of that, and without in any way interfering with the independence of the Arts Council, will the Taoiseach consider making alternative arrangements for funding and for keeping the Irish National Ballet Company alive?

That is exactly what I was discussing with Deputy Barry a moment ago; I gather from his question he would like the Arts Council to be totally independent and free to decide these matters for themselves. I indicated I did not want to be in a position of being a court of appeal from the Arts Council. In an endeavour to help the situation and to leave it open to be considered by the new Arts Council I allocated some lottery funds to keep the company going until the end of the year so that the position would remain outstanding until the new Arts Council looked at the matter. That is exactly what happened.

I appreciate the Taoiseach's point but he knows the Arts Council have announced that they will have no funding for this year — or the next two years — in this area which means that the Irish National Ballet Company are being killed. It is the end of the story as far as they are concerned. In view of this, does the Taoiseach not feel some obligation to put something in place which will sustain modern dance or ballet as an art form in this country, or is he going to abandon it entirely?

I must suggest to the Deputy that it is not a matter for me; it is a matter for the Arts Council. The decision whether or not to continue to support the Irish National Ballet Company is a matter for the Arts Council and any decision to put something else in its place would equally be a matter for the Arts Council, not for me.

Question No. 6.

A Cheann Comhairle——

Order, please.

Both Deputy Barry and Deputy Higgins are offering. I call on Deputy Barry.

The Taoiseach misinterprets the intention behind my question. The purpose was to find out whether the Arts Council, while appearing, from the Taoiseach's words, to be independent, are in fact getting moneys which have been already allocated by the Taoiseach's Department. He assures me that that is not correct, and that they are free to spend their 1989 allocation any way they like. Would the Taoiseach agree that it has been taken more than a generation to build up an audience for and an appreciation of quality of dancing in this country through the Irish National Ballet Company which would be irreplaceable if it were to be wiped out at this stage, and that it is incumbent on the Government to provide some funds to ensure that the work of a generation is not lost at this stage?

We are tending towards repetition.

I would not agree and it would be unwise, to say the least, for the Government to entrust these matters to the Arts Council and then to set itself up as a court of appeal when that Arts Council take certain decisions.

Deputy Higgins.

Will the Taoiseach accept that the value of the National Irish Ballet Company——

Deputy Higgins has been called.

I have already given evidence of that. In order to help, as an emergency measure, and to enable this to be fully and adequately considered, I allocated some funds to keep the ballet company going to the end of last year so that it could be fully and thoroughly examined by the new Arts Council.

May I ask a brief supplementary?

We are dwelling over-long on this question.

Does the Taoiseach appreciate we have heard these arguments from the Arts Council every year for the past ten years but that no Government have allowed the Irish National Ballet Company to die except this one?

Deputy Higgins.

I cannot accept that. This Government are not allowing the Irish National Ballet Company to die. In so far as the Government had any input, they kept the ballet company going. Deputy Barry cannot have it both ways.

I am not sure I have it either way——

He cannot adopt a stance here claiming that the Arts Council must be totally independent and then when they take a decision he does not like, he wants the Government to intervene.

Deputy Higgins.

Order, please.