The Stage

Campaign wins extra £3m for arts in Northern Ireland

Published Monday 28 January 2008 at 12:50 by Michael Quinn

Northern Ireland’s arts sector has secured an additional £3 million funding from the region’s legislative Assembly, thanks to a high-profile protest campaign against proposals that would have led to an uplift of just £500,000 for 2008/9.

The announcement comes after a several years of “chronic under-funding” and a proposal in the Assembly’s draft budget that arts council chairman Rosemary Kelly described as “tantamount to sounding a death knell over large areas of arts activity”. The new allocation of £7.55 million for 2008/11 represents a 67% increase on the original sum proposed for the period and includes £1.7 million for the year ahead.

While welcoming the new money, arts council chief executive Roisin McDonough also noted that the allocation still fell short of the funding necessary for Northern Ireland’s arts sector to achieve parity with its British and Irish neighbours.

“It means we are now in a better position to look after the needs of our core organisations,” she said. “But the additional £1.7 million for 2008/9, while certainly an improvement, won’t be enough to sustain all of our clients and falls well short of the extra £9 million per annum needed to help us to develop a truly healthy and vibrant arts sector.”

She warned the council “still faces difficult decisions” and added that “the funds allocated simply do not meet the needs of the sector”.

There was other good news for arts workers with confirmation from finance minister Peter Robinson, who paid tribute to the pressure campaign, of the Assembly’s continuing commitment to a £31.5 million capital investment in Northern Ireland’s cultural infrastructure and the announcement of a £5 million Creative Industries Seed Fund, to be administered by the Arts Council.