Budget allocates €4m for Easter Rising commemorations

Some €4 million has been provided in the budget for the forthcoming Easter 1916 centenary commemorations.

The money will be spent on preparing for the Rising commemorations next year, with a further allocation to come for 2016.

Minster for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys has said the money will be used for an "integrated plan to be rolled out over 2015, to lead up to the Commemorations in 2016".

The Government has been criticised over its alleged inactivity in relation to the Rising commemorations.

Last weekend, some 250 relatives met for the first time to form the 1916 Relatives Association. They complained the Government appears to have no plan for the Rising commemoration, and that relatives have not been consulted.

A spokeswoman for Ms Humphreys said the department had been unable to bring forward concrete plans to date until the funding was secured.

“This will make it a lot easier to push it out. We can push ahead with the consultation period,” the spokeswoman said.

The money will be used to engage schoolchildren and the arts community in preparing for the commemorations. “As far as putting flesh on the bones and activities are concerned, they will be rolled out before Christmas,” the spokeswoman said.

The €4 million allocation is separate from the €22 million in capital funding being used to provide a museum in the GPO, renovation of Kilmainham Courthouse and a new tenement museum.

Before the budget allocation was announced, the relatives’ group had turned down a meeting with the Minister this week. The spokeswoman said the Minister was “very disappointed” that they had declined her invitation to attend a meeting. “We are more than happy to sit down with them and we were told no,” she said.

A spokesman for the relatives’ association said they were unwilling to turn up for “tea and buns with the Minister”, and wanted some meaningful proposals brought forward before engaging with the Government.

“We welcome this allocation [€4 million] but we don’t have any detail as to exactly what they are planning. The devil is in the detail. Can somebody within Government please tell us what they are planning?” he said.

“The Minister has asked to meet with the group, but we would welcome meaningful dialogue with senior officials as to what the plans are, and right now the plans are zero. There is no point in meeting for the sake of meeting.”

He said previous meetings with the department amounted to “publicity stunts. We were told they [the department] would come back to us with plans in September, but nothing has been on the table since.”