The recent announcement by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O'Donoghue, of a €100 million redevelopment of the Abbey Theatre - welcomed and endorsed by the artistic director of the National Theatre - is an important turning point.
In seeking to remedy the inadequacies of the current building, the project has the potential to revitalise the working environment of the National Theatre to the benefit of audiences and theatre practitioners alike. It addresses not only the needs of a major national cultural institution, but could also contribute significantly to the urban regeneration of the north inner-city. And, through an innovative Public/Private Partnership undertaking, the Minister has proposed this solution without even having to identify the proportion of the €100 million that will come from the public purse.
The Minister's pragmatism with the PPP process contrasts starkly with the Government's treatment of other arts issues. Much breath has been expended and much ink used in attacking the Arts Council for the recent wave of cutbacks it has visited on its clients. The council has a lot of explaining to do if it is to convince the arts community that those cutbacks were made on the basis of a considered rationale, as the council clearly believes they were.
But the Government's 8 per cent cutback in funding to the Arts Council carried a hidden bite that may help to explain the vicious effects of the cuts experienced by the council's clients. The Arts Council's €44 million allocation from Government for 2003 is actually 2.5 per cent below the allocation it received in 2000. In real terms, taking inflation into account, the council's budget has dropped over 15 per cent in three years.
At the same time as Mr O'Donoghue secured the green light for the Abbey redevelopment, the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Dempsey, quietly stood down a €44.4 million arts project first mooted by the Taoiseach in 1998, and formally announced by the ministers for Arts and Education in 2000.
The Programme for Government clearly states, ahead of the commitment to rebuild the Abbey, that: "We will ensure the early establishment of the Irish Academy for the Performing Arts under the aegis of the Department of Education and Science." That promise has been reneged on, and, without even a whisper of public consultation, the money for the proposed academy's headquarters has been whisked away and the development terminated.
With protracted delays facing other cultural initiatives, including the €57 million rehousing of the Cork School of Music and the redevelopment of the Wexford Festival's Theatre Royal, the supportive noises made about the arts in recent years by ministers are now beginning to sound very hollow.