AT A time of financial cutbacks, plans to spend €90,000 on a piece of artwork featuring a flying pig has caused a row in Co Monaghan.
The idea was inspired by the legend of a black pig which was supposed to exist in early times in the waters of Lough Muckno, near Castleblayney. Some €90,000 has been earmarked from an arts budget of €170,000 to commemorate the pig legend – and the area’s association with pig farming – in a statue of a flying pig which it is proposed to set up beside the N2 Dublin to Derry road.
Monaghan County Council has claimed if the money is not spent on the artwork, it will revert to the central exchequer. It said it had €170,000 to spend for artwork relating to the building of two new bypasses on the N2.
However, Fine Gael councillor Hugh McElvaney, who is national chairman of the Local Authority Members Association, said: “This expenditure is disgraceful at a time when the council hasn’t sufficient money to undertake all the road improvements that are necessary in the area.”
Fianna Fáil councillor Robbie Gallagher added: “The take-it-or-leave-it attitude of the NRA [National Roads Authority] is very disappointing in the present climate, but rather than lose the money we may as well use it.”
An Irish Farmers’ Association spokesman in Co Monaghan said yesterday: “ This is a disgraceful waste of public money at a time when the local authorities are finding it impossible to get all the funds they need for road maintenance.” Some farmers, he added, were still awaiting payment for tracts of land acquired by the local authority for road schemes in the county.
Originally set up by the Office of Public Works in 1978 and extended to all government departments in 1997, up to 1 per cent of the cost of building projects, or a maximum of €64,000, may be incorporated in the overall cost.
Additional funding may be included from private sponsorship or other sources of arts funding. The scheme is administered by the Department of Tourism.
Under the terms of the “Per Cent for Art Scheme”, through which major construction projects may include funding for works of art, a number of striking works have been placed beside many of the State’s newer motorways.
The scheme has also resulted in a range of works of art in public spaces such as the depiction Sisters by John Kindness (featuring Michelle and Yvonne Dunne) in the Civic Centre, Ballymun. Also covered is performance art including music such as The Whisper of Ghosts (2004) by composer Elaine Agnew, which was commissioned by Wexford County Council.