AMONG ITS commitments in a pre-election document on arts policy, Fine Gael promised that “cultural discussion will be driven up the agenda of government” and that “the arm’s length principle will be respected”. It would now appear that these commitments had no real meaning. The Government seems to have no intention of listening to or allowing the views of the cultural sector into any discussion of an agenda described in the Seanad by Fiach Mac Conghaill as having the potential to undermine “the whole cultural infrastructure of the nation”. The “arm’s length principle” will at the very least be compromised if a proposal to merge several of our national institutions results in the demise of their individual boards – a threat further implied in past days in a Department of Arts reiteration of the need for “necessary structural reform”.
The consequence of such action could mean a more direct involvement by the Minister’s or some other department in the affairs and governance of the National Library and National Archives, Irish Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery and other bodies. As well as embodying expertise, a good board should protect the autonomy that is essential to these institutions. In effect, they act as the buffer between politics and the arts. Where does such expertise lie in a government department and who will say “hands off” if in the future some minister or civil servant does not like what an institution is doing or failing to do? The National Cultural Institutions Act 1997, initiated by President Michael D Higgins when he was minister for the arts, envisaged such safeguards.
The decision by historian Diarmaid Ferriter to resign from the library’s board again raises the potentially damaging consequences of these intended “reforms”. He spoke of his decision as a wider protest at Government policy on culture, but the question might well be asked: what policy? There appears to be an absence of any real philosophy or vision in this area; what we are seeing is a Government determined to bring our cultural bodies closer to the rag-and-bone processes of politics.
Dr Ferriter rightly takes issue with the lack of clarity from the Government on the rationale behind any mergers. There has been no convincing argument and there is an obdurate refusal to acknowledge the clear and necessary distinction between their functions and identities. While stipends to board members should cease and the sharing of “back office services” might indeed make sense as well as savings, reforms that weaken the institutions’ independence represent a value judgment that suggests these repositories of our heritage, history and artistic wealth count for nothing.
What is breathtaking is the double-speak – politicians proudly acknowledging the role culture plays in our identity, as well as its potential to be a driving force in recovery. The decade of commemoration that this country has just embarked on will be a key period for these institutions that play such a vital role in connecting the present with the past. However, the Government agenda, however, might ensure that the past has no future.