Sir, - Funding decisions by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland over the past few months have given rise to significant debate in your columns. Our decision to reject an inadequate application for redevelopment of a site adjacent to the Grand Opera House in Belfast, in particular, exercised the minds of many commentators. This is healthy and it is heartening to see the arts and cultural matters generally being treated seriously as an important part of our society's well-being.
The management of the Opera House itself, however, does not always make it clear that it receives major public funding through the Arts Council and tends, for whatever reason, to promote only a partial view of its own affairs. Now temperatures have cooled a little, I would like to reflect on the reality of the Arts Council's role in funding the Opera House.
In the past six years, more than £4.5 million sterling of public money has been awarded to the Grand Opera House. In 2001, the Arts Council handed over to the Grand Opera House Trust ownership of the building itself, which has been held and restored by the Arts Council on behalf of the public, and was recently valued in the region of £11 million.
The Arts Council also has ring-fenced £2 million for an adequate development of the Opera House. For the coming financial year 2002/2003, the Grand Opera House has been given a running costs grant of £458,000. This is the funding which keeps the doors open and the heating on.
In addition, however, the Arts Council will grant to the Grand Opera House £185,000 for the visit of the Welsh National Opera and £25,000 to organise a Youth Opera Summer Project.
I would also point out that the Grand Opera House is in the second year of an audience development programme funded by the Arts Council and worth, over a period of three years, £288,000. This again is in addition to all the amounts I have mentioned above.
The council's commitment to the Grand Opera House as an institution in the city of Belfast and as an asset for the whole of Northern Ireland is unquestionable.
We hope the public will continue to visit the Grand Opera House and enjoy not only the arts element of its programme (which the Arts Council subsidises) but also the recent refurbishment towards which the Arts Council gave almost £500,000 through its National Lottery funds. - Yours, etc.,
Prof BRIAN WALKER,
Arts Council
of Northern Ireland,
Malone Road,
Belfast 9.