Agenda item

The Director of Economic Development provided an update on the ongoing Fleadh bid work and requested associated budget.

He stated that, in recent weeks, officers had developed an updated edition of the Fleadh Cheoil bid book and this would accompany the Council’s Expression of Interest for the 2025 event, which must be with the Fleadh Executive Office in Dublin by 15th December, 2023.

He advised that this updated iteration had been consolidated by feedback received on our previous submissions – and it now included an English version with Irish language headings, a separate full Irish language version and additional content inserted on Accessibility and Sustainability (as per previous bid submission feedback from Comhaltas).

He reminded the Committee that, at its meeting in June, it had approved officers to continue with the bid process for future years, approved the budget for 2023-24 associated with the bid process (including attendance of a delegation at each event including attendance by Lord Mayor at the Fleadh Cheoil in Mullingar in August) and noted the costs associated with bid activity for 2024-25 and 2025-26.

He pointed out that, since then, the 2024 / 2025 calendar of Fleadh related events had become available as follows:

            The table also illustrates which events the Lord Mayor and other Council officials might need to attend.

            The Director of Economic Development highlighted that officers were now seeking permission to send the Lord Mayor and appropriate officers to these events as detailed. He highlighted that attendance was important to demonstrate the ongoing commitment from the Council and Ards Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (CCE) to securing Fleadh Cheoil. In particular, it was critical that approval was provided promptly to allow travel arrangements to be booked as soon as possible for the US Convention in Buffalo, New York in early April 2024 (which was within the first week of the new financial year). This would ensure optimum value for money in the booking process and to allow for synergy between the travel plans of the Council’s delegation and that of Ards CCE. For the appropriate Director detailed as above, costs were expected to be circa £2,500 for attendance at the US Convention.

He explained that the in-year Events Development Budget (£40,000) had to-date covered the costs of the Ards Letter of Offer in-year, and other Fleadh bid book work to date including translation, design and print costs. In addition, members agreed to provide a Eurovision event in Belfast in May from this budget line. While some budget remained (circa £7,000), a full Fleadh Executive visit was also planned for Belfast within the first financial quarter of 2024, which needed to be accounted for in budget profiling.

The Director of Economic Development advised that the Committee was requested to consider approval for the additional budget required to accommodate the arrangements for the US Convention in - year to a value of £2,500.

In relation to Ards CCE, the Committee was reminded that under the conditions of the current in-year Funding Agreement with Ards CCE, the branch were responsible for making their own travel and accommodation arrangements. This included the US Convention at the beginning of April 2024. Officers were working with Finance and Legal to ensure the early release of appropriate funds from the 2024/2025 financial year were processed to enable flights and accommodation bookings to proceed (circa £22k).

The Committee noted the contents of report and approved that the budget from 2024/25 financial year be used to accommodate the arrangements for the US Convention in April 2024.