`She had a hard act to follow." A year into Sile de Valera's tenure as Minister for Arts, Culture, Heritage and the Islands, many leading figures in the state's arts world begin their assessment of her ministry with these words. Her predecessor, Michael D. Higgins, had the great advantage that he was the first cabinet minister for the arts ever, and could build his vision on a greenfield site. He was incomparable, because there had never been another minister with whom to compare him.
That said, few working in the arts now would deny that his performance was highly impressive. One of the most telling indicators of this is the fact that at the last election, no party suggested doing away with the cabinet ministry, and most tried to voice some sort of arts policy. (The shameful exception was Fine Gael - which when asked who was its spokesperson on the arts, said the party had none, because Michael D. Higgins had been doing that job for them; Enda Kenny has since taken on the role.) Sile de Valera was Higgins's sole credible opponent, the only other candidate with anything approaching a policy on the arts; but because Michael D. Higgins's had been built from scratch, she was forced into a position of dancing to, and against, his tune on many issues. Since she took office, she has, quite rightly, implemented some of his policies and made progress on others, which tends to meet with a confused response: people think she's doing the right thing because the policies were good, but they refuse to give her any credit because they feel it should go to Higgins. Minister de Valera is considered by most to be a very nice woman, and that is some achievement for a politician. She is widely described as "honest", "courteous", "warm" and "prepared to listen", a nuts-and-bolts, no-nonsense person. Some people compare her favourably with Higgins, who was considered to have developed a bit of an ego in office: "There's less of the `my department', `my staff', kind of business", commented one arts journalist.
However, the comparison with Higgins tends to do her less service when the questions, posed to leading figures in the arts world who would not go on the record, become more specific. The words "low energy" and "inertia" feature, although it is acknowledged that it is too early to judge whether or not this is because hard, meticulous work is going on behind the scenes.
One large trumpet blast has interrupted this relative quietness. Within six months of taking office, the Minister delivered on her most dramatic pre-election promise: to bring the Arts Council's funding up to £26 million, in order to finance its Arts Plan, a year before Minister Higgins was saying he could do so. This was a very welcome achievement, but its true significance cannot yet be judged. If the level of funding does not continue to rise this year, then the increase was really just an advance. If so, then the motivation of the Department of Finance in granting the increase will have to be seen as constituting a desperate bid to outshine a jewel of the last administration. The Arts Council was commissioned to prepare the Arts Plan by Michael D. Higgins in the first place, after all, and it was here that the £26 million figure was first mooted. ail.
There are varying predictions about de Valera's ability to wangle money from the Department of Finance. At the recent Arts Council conference in Limerick, she was criticised for over-using financial benefits as an argument for the arts, but she countered, with some spirit, that she had to use these arguments at the Cabinet table to attract funding. The review of the current Arts Plan, which she has commissioned from Coopers and Lybrand and Indecon, will probably be used in the same way. Some feel that her failure to "philosophise" about the arts will not hamper her in fulfilling her primary task of "reminding the Government that it has a statutory obligation to provide for the arts", while others fear that her "often uninspiring" speeches will fail to convince the Department of Finance. Apart from her achievement in bringing in the Arts Plan funding early, there seems to be relatively few new initiatives to point to in the contemporary arts sector.
Some complain that she does not have, as Michael D. Higgins did, a full-time adviser from the arts world, and that this means she is not responding directly to the needs of the sector. (She does have a highly-regarded civil servant who acts as her adviser, Bridget Mac Manus, and Michael Ronayne, on secondment from RTE, is her media adviser). The boldest idea she has promoted is that of a National Centre for the Performing Arts, or conservatoire, for the teaching of music, drama and dance, as a Millennium project. She has since said she would favour Earlsfort Terrace as its location. This scheme has its supporters, of whom the most vocal is the pianist and Royal Irish Academy of Music director, John O'Conor. The idea has advanced so far that Bertie Ahern mentioned it as a desirable development in his speech on the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Academy. In March, the Minister set up, with the Department of Education, a working group to look into the project, which has instructions to report back "at an early date".
The scheme also has its strong opponents, who feel it is designed more as a "political monument" than as an arts facility. Many of these are key figures in the Irish music world. Some feel the site is wholly inappropriate: that it will cost much more than the projected £12.5 million to move the remaining UCD departments from Earlsfort Terrace and that UCD has given no undertaking that it is prepared to move; that a country of 3.5 million people could not support a world-class third level musical institution (disproved by the example of Finland); that the resources of the National Concert Hall, stretched already, will not be able to cater for the conservatoire. "I think the Miister has bought a pup," commented one music administrator, who thinks the review group's brief and composition means it will not consider any other site.
The idea of a "monument project" is rendered more vivid by the fact that it would be built on the sand of appalling standards of musical education at primary level. There was a commitment to working with the Department of Education in the current Arts Plan, and the need to lobby that department to get the arts onto the educational agenda, which was mentioned in the Minister's pre-election literature, is adverted to again and again: "While the Minister says we're the only country in Europe without a conservatoire, I don't hear anyone saying we're the only country in Europe without a proper primary education," commented a leading player in the music industry. Many feel we should build on what little music education there is around the country - such as the College of Music in Cork and the University of Limerick's new degree in string performance - rather than build a central facility in the capital. One teacher of music who is a supporter of the Minister, describes this attitude as "post-colonial": "Put it in the city, because it's city music." The argument that we do not have the same cultural infrastructure as most European metropolitan centres, and that this gives us an opportunity to do something different, is also used in relation to the idea of an opera house for Dublin, which, prior to the election, the Minister described as a "missing ingredient". There seems to have been no move to carry out a feasibility study, and again, there is resistance to the idea of a monument, "something someone can slap their name on", in the absence of proper music education or a healthy climate for opera: "Why do we have to emulate every provincial European city?" comes one voice from the opera world.
Monument-building has been at the centre of Fianna Fail policies on the arts in the past (Aosdana for Haughey, Irish National Ballet for Jack Lynch), but, in fairness, this was how arts patronage was understood until recently, and Fine Gael has left no monuments at all. Things are different now, however, and so de Valera is suspected, by some, of monument-building even in her intention to set up a National Cultural Institutions Council as a forum for discussion between her department and the directors of institutions such as the National Gallery, the National Theatre and the National Museum. However, the national institutions themselves seem to welcome the move. As one director said: "It will be a forum in which we can define strategic objectives, and that's the mechanism for achieving those objectives."
Of course, there are other ideas and intentions which appear in her manifesto and about which there has not been any word since. Where, for instance, is the Music Board, suggested by the FORTE report on the music industry, which would have overall responsibility for implementing music industry strategy, and which the Minister said she would set up "immediately upon taking up office"? What progress has been made on absorbing the National Theatre into the department's brief as a national institution, an option which the Minister said she favoured? It is, however, a fairly easy task to pick out unfulfilled promises, and it's natural that new priorities and new restrictions make themselves known to a Minister on taking office.
It's more useful to look at the actions which the Minister has taken. Since she set up the Think Tank on film, the film sector seems broadly convinced that she is determined to protect the tax incentives to the industry, but there is regret that it took her a year to announce its formation. Now the great fear is that the Think Tank will not be able to make a strong enough case before the Estimates are published. The Department of Finance is suspected of being against the tax incentives, but if they are weakened, said one film producer, "we can all take the boat to London".
Higgins announced his intention to establish a Screen Commission to market Ireland as a location for film, a move advocated by the Film Board, just before the last election, cheekily depriving the incoming Minister of claiming the initiative as her own. However, it took until March for the announcement to be made that she had secured the funding to set it up. Is it because she has had little room in which to build her own vision that many people feel she doesn't have one? This criticism, that she has no discernible vision, is levelled at her again and again: "I feel a lack of leadership," is how one arts manager puts it.
Declan Gorman, of Upstate Theatre Project, who has a high-profile track record on community arts and co-ordinated the Arts Council's Theatre Review, makes the point, however, that de Valera's position is based on hard work and research, is aimed at providing for the arts community as much as on any philosophy, and that this is a positive development because "if we want a national philosophy for the arts, let artists do that". It is worth nothing that the Minister responded positively to a suggestion made at the recent Arts Council Consultative Forum in Limerick that she should hold formal meetings with the arts community annually. Gorman also welcomes the constitution of the Arts Council, saying: "I believe her interest in the development of community arts is real". This opinion is echoed by some, particularly those west of the Shannon, who have been poorly represented on the Council in the past. Others feel that the council is democratically representative, but will not necessarily be "an engine of development and leadership", and that this potential failing springs from the Minister's lack of an overall vision. And the Minister's stated priorities - the Irish language and the arts, arts and disability and regional access - are seen by many as social issues which have moved centre-stage in the Minister's arts agenda because there is no strong, holistic vision of the arts there.
If the Coalition serves its full term, Sile de Valera may still have some years in which to prove them absolutely wrong. No doubt she is already battling for an increase in arts funding in this year's Estimates. If so, an increasingly organised, vocal arts community is ready to line out in serried ranks behind her.
The Front Row column has been held over until next week.
