According to the recently-published Arts Plan 1999 - 2001, FAS contributes approximately £8.75 million pounds a year to the arts, which includes provision for both the amateur and professional sectors.

The Arts Council itself estimates that there will be a 25 per cent reduction in FAS grants to arts organisations over the life of the next plan. This would mean an overall cut of £2.18 million over the next three years.

The 19 arts centres around the country which are funded by the Arts Council receive between them a total of £1.16 million in FAS grants towards their operational costs.

If arts centres suffer cutbacks and absorb this sum, it still leaves £1.02 million to be found by others across other disciplines, amateur and professional.

FAS has announced a 30 per cent reduction in CE places, with priority given to "care/dependency" programmes. There is no guarantee that it will not target the arts particularly for cuts, given the buoyancy in the sector heralded in the Arts Plan.

If FAS's £8.17 million were lost to the arts, the £6 million increase allocated to the Arts Council for the year 2,000 would be swallowed, leaving a £2 million deficit for the council to make up.