Irish arts hit by funding drop of almost 10%

Published Thursday 16 October 2008 at 16:10 by Michael Quinn

Irish audiences have been warned to expect “fewer festivals, fewer exhibitions, less theatre and less music” next year as a result of a near 10% drop in funding in the newly announced arts budget for 2009.

The cutbacks follow a decade of sustained growth in Ireland’s arts, culture and film sectors. Although funding has more than doubled since 2002 to £144.6 million, the latest allocation is a 9.3% year-on-year reduction. The Arts Council has been awarded just £59.2 million next year, a cut of 10.9% and far short of the £78.5 million the grant-dispensing body had been campaigning for.

Arts minister Martin Cullen said that with instructions to achieve a 3% saving in administrative costs, the Arts Council was actually facing a “marginal” cut of only 0.75%, equivalent to just €800,000 (£626,000).

The Arts Council’s deputy chair, Maurice Foley, warned that as a result of the reduced allocation, “Significant grant cuts are unavoidable, conditional commitments will have to be renewed and some organisations will need funds from other sources if they are to survive. Individual artists can expect fewer bursaries [and] there are also likely to be job losses”.