Governance
Legal Status
C.A.F.E. Limited (trading as Create / Create Ireland, and formerly as Creative Activity For Everyone) is a company registered in Ireland, incorporated on 10 April 1987 as a company limited by guarantee, not having a share capital. The objects of the company are charitable in nature, the main object being to promote the arts as defined in the Arts Acts.
Charitable Status
In 1996, the company was granted charitable exemption by the Revenue Commissioners retrospective to the date of incorporation (CHY 9695). The company is exempted from Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax and Deposit Interest Retention Tax under Section 207, Taxes Consolidation Act, 1997 and from Corporation Tax for certain trading activities under the same section.
The company is authorised by the Revenue Commissioners to operate the Donation Scheme for tax exempted donations to Charitable Bodies (Section 848A, Tax Consolidation Act, 1997).
The company is registered as a charity with the Charities Regulatory Authority (Reg. No: 20024291). By virtue of the Charities Act, 2009, the directors of the company are deemed to also be charity trustees.
Financial Statements
Financial Statements are presented in a format that complies with the requirements of the Companies Act, 2014, and accounting standards generally accepted in Ireland as giving a true and fair view as promulgated by Chartered Accountants Ireland and issued by the Financial Reporting Council including FRS 102. The Directors are committed to the implementation of the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) as issued by the Charity Commission for England & Wales.
Artists’ Pay Policy
We recognise the nature of much collaborative arts practice as relational (not transactional) and durational (not occasional) and we believe this needs to be recognised and provided for accordingly. We are committed to designing support frameworks that provide appropriately for the sustained engagement of artists in collaborative practice and to influencing partners and funders to do likewise.It is Create policy that all artists and creative professionals we engage are properly remunerated for their work. Create is committed to transparent pay scales for artists and arts practitioners that work in collaborative practice and creative professionals involved in all types of artistic services. We ask and expect our partners and collaborators to ensure that the principle of fair and proportionate rates of pay is honoured. You can read our Pay Policy and summary rates which are linked to the right hand side of this page.
Safeguarding
We have carried out a risk assessment of any potential for harm to a child while availing of our services, and have put measures in place to mitigate against such risks. Please read our Protection and Welfare Policy Statement, which contains a risk assessment and safeguarding statement.
Climate Action
Create’s foundational ethos is centred on social justice and equity for all individuals. We recognise that the climate crisis disproportionately affects those already impacted by other overlapping systemic inequalities. As an organisation we understand that we cannot support and advocate for work that addresses these inequalities without taking action in relation to our own climate impact. Read our Climate Action Policy and Action Plan to learn more.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Within our current strategy, Connect Create Change 2020-2025, we have five strategic goals. The second of these goals is: Develop cultural and cross-sectoral partnerships to support greater diversity in the practice and strengthen its capacity for social change. A number of actions are set out to achieve this goal, which can be read in our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy, linked on this page.
Governance
The board and executive officers comply with the organisation’s Code of Conduct for Directors and Officers. The principles that underpin the general ethos of this code include:
- Loyalty
- Integrity
- Disclosure of Interests
- Confidentiality of Information
- Legal Obligations
- Board Operation
- Fairness
- Impartiality + Independence
The organisation is committed to compliance with the Charities Governance Code and has in place systems and processes to ensure that it achieves its charitable objectives with integrity and is managed in an effective, efficient, accountable and transparent way.
The organisation has adopted the Principles of Good Fund Raising as drawn up by the Irish Charities Tax Reform Group. Create is a signatory of the Safe to Create Code of Behaviour.
In keeping with the organisation’s Strategy, Connect Create Change, which recognises an intersectional approach to diversity by acknowledging how multiple forms of discrimination (e.g. gender, class, ethnicity, disability, age) can combine and overlap in the experiences of individuals and minority groups, the board is committed to diversifying its membership through regular audit and renewal.
Management
The company has seven full-time and four part-time employees.
Board of Directors (Trustees)
Kevin Murphy (Chair, appointed 2025)
Kevin Murphy is CEO of The Playhouse in Derry~Londonderry, a cultural leader who seeks to build things he believes in with others that help make positive change. His diverse career began as a professional musician in London, followed by roles on the island of Ireland with Music55-7 as an Artistic Director and Creative Lives Ireland as their Chief Officer.
At The Playhouse Kevin engages with the locality and people of the North West of the island of Ireland and important global narratives around art making, empowering people and making peaceful change. He works with a highly creative team to provide a space for making meaning together creatively, peacefully and with hope. Kevin is also a Clore Fellow, Common Purpose Graduate and International Futures Forum Practice Advisor. He has co-written the influential books Making Common Cause and Recovering Hope, and is a core member of the Wellbeing Economy Ireland Hub.
Frances Brennan (appointed 2023)
Frances Brennan, owner of the Tax Studio from 2010 – 2022 has many years’ experience acting for individuals in Ireland and internationally in the arts, film and entertainment world, having previously been the Tax Manager in a boutique accountancy practice in Dublin and London. She brings insight on the business front with a unique perspective on ‘the bigger picture’ to aid artists navigate the necessary paperwork, coaching them to keep an eye both on their talent and ambition together with making a living from their craft. She has assisted artists with various projects over the years including curating archives for The National Library and co-ordinating works for various grant and Revenue applications. She holds a diploma in Trust and Estate Planning and is an NLP life and business coach. She recently completed a diploma in Event Management with The Irish Academy of Public Relations.
Michelle Browne (appointed 2025)
Michelle Browne is an artist and educator based in Dublin. Her work looks at what it means to live together: how society organises itself socially, politically and spatially. Performance and participation are core parts of her practice. Recent work includes: ‘Cycles’ (2024) for Carlow Arts Festival, an audio experience of the countryside, considering our relationship to land, history and our precarious future as climate change takes hold; World of Work (2022) a new board game looking at employment commissioned by Heart of Glass, a Merseyside community arts organization. Other recent exhibitions and events include: Mná na hÉireann at NCAD Gallery, 2024; live performances for Twist, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Tasmania (2023); The Midnight Run with Inua Ellams at The Abbey Theatre (2022). She is a lecturer in Sculpture and Expanded Practice at NCAD.
Dr. Helen Burke (appointed 2020)
Helen Burke has over 20 years’ experience in research & organisational management and strategy implementation across industry and academia. She engages with national and international funding agencies, companies and charities across multiple sectors including Arts, Humanities, Education, Engineering and Science. Having worked in various universities and start-up companies, she has developed significant experience in strategy, policy formulation & implementation, operations & financial management and leadership. She is passionate about collaboration, engagement and empowerment. She is currently Senior Research Officer in Dublin City University and is on the Steering Committee of the Centre for Engaged Research and the management team of PPI Ignite, which is focussed on embedding public involvement in research. She is also a Director/Trustee of Sage Advocacy.
Liz Burns (appointed 2022)
Liz Burns is Arts Officer for Wexford County Council having taken up the role in 2016. Previously she was the Arts Programme Manager for Fire Station Artist’s Studios in Dublin with a particular focus on socially engaged arts practice. She completed her MA in Visual Arts Practices with DIADT (2009-10) and developed an independent curatorial practice focusing on collaborative and public arts practice. Liz was Chair of Arts & Disability Ireland ( 2010 – 2016) and was Outreach Coordinator with Tallaght Community Arts Centre( 2000 – 2002) . Liz originally studied Communications/Film in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). She joined the board of directors of the National Opera House in Wexford in 2020.
Oein DeBhairduin is a writer, activist and educator with a passion for preserving the beauty of Traveller tales, sayings, retellings and historic exchanges. Oein is the author of the award-winning Why the moon travels. His other works are Weave, The Slug and the Snail and Twiggy Woman. He is the Traveller Culture Collections Development Officer with the National Museum of Ireland and seeks to pair community activism with cultural celebration, recalling old tales with fresh modern connections and, most of all, he wishes to rekindle the hearth fires of a shared kinship.
Tony Fegan (appointed 2024)
Tony Fegan is a participatory arts practitioner with extensive experience in creating multilingual performance in intercultural and international settings. Tony currently works with Mother Tongues as a Creative Producer supporting their development as the first organisation in Ireland that employs creative arts to support families to embrace their mother tongue & increase confidence in linguistic and cultural identity.
Tony was Director of Tallaght Community Arts (TCA) 2007 – 2023, where he repositioned TCA as a participatory arts development organisation working with communities across South Dublin County. In 2022 TCA spearheaded a local resident /arts consortium and secured an Arts Council of Ireland Creative Places three year award.
Philip Napier (appointed 2024)
Professor Philip Napier is an artist and educator. Currently he is Head of the Fine Art Faculty at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Napier has worked through art practice in a variety of challenging environments, where a negotiation of the situation, as content, has had a significant bearing on the work engaged and produced. He has developed works within gallery contexts and through time based and permanently sited public projects. Napier works both individually and collaboratively. He is a former Rome scholar, and has represented Ireland at the XXII Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil, Great Britain at the inaugural Kwangju Biennial and Northern Ireland in the Montreal Biennial. He was the Integrated Arts Coordinator during the redevelopment of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast.
Company Secretary: Damien McGlynn (interim)