EARLIER THIS year the arts in Ireland looked doomed to suffer a funding setback that would undo years of progress in creating stability for artists and organisations as well as undermining the audience-building of recent years and the integration of culture into core government policy. Moreover, the McCarthy report recommended the abolition of two successful promotion bodies, the Film Board and Culture Ireland; the department itself, along with its Minister, seemed under threat in the run-up to the Budget.
Thankfully, the realisation at political level that the country’s cultural resources were actually an asset, awakened thinking on the value of investment in our “creative capital”. The argument that the arts could contribute to a renewed vision of Ireland’s image and identity, as well as to the economy, won an enlightened response on Budget day.
By all accounts this conversion can be very much attributed to the powerful case made for the arts at the Irish Economic Forum in Farmleigh last September; the interventions made by those from outside the sector were particularly vital and persuasive. In rallying together disparate interests from across the art-forms, the National Campaign for the Arts managed to achieve what had been unprecedented. The lessons learned from that show of solidarity might well be instructive again some time in the future.
The Minister, Martin Cullen, also deserves praise for his role in championing what he called the value of “the Irish imagination”. While the outcome of this consensus of faith in the potential of the arts is welcome, perhaps the greatest challenge now lies with the Arts Council which has to sustain organisations and activity with a 6 per cent cut in its own budget.
The council has rightly acknowledged its relief and gratitude that this cut is modest compared to what had been anticipated as part of the need to curtail public spending. But now council members have to apply this shortfall in resources down the line to where art is created and performed.
When it meets in January it has to find ways to ensure that recent achievements are not undermined and also to fulfil its promise “to ensure that people right across the country have access to the best of the arts in 2010”. This first of all involves identifying key priorities; the making of such choices is likely to be unpalatable and in places unpopular. The old adage about quality and quantity comes to mind.