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54February 2015
T
HE Arts Act established
the Arts Council and charged it
with stimulating public inter-
est; with promoting knowledge,
appreciation and practice; and
with assisting in improving standards in
the arts.
It is a voluntary body of members
and a chair, appointed by the Minister
for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for
a term of five years. The ongoing work of
the Arts Council is delivered by the exec-
utive. In addition to the Director, a staff
of full-time equivalents carries out
the daily functions of the organisation.
Arts advisers, who provide additional
expertise and strategic advice on differ-
ent aspects of the arts, are retained on a
consultancy basis.
The Arts Act developed that role,
particularly by increasing public access
and engagement. The Arts Act
reiterated the three key purposes of the
Arts Council and re-calibrated the rela-
tionship between it and Government. It
underlined the autonomy of the Council
as the expert body for funding the arts,
steering their development, and offering
advice on arts and cultural matters. Its
mission is to promote and develop the arts
in Ireland. It does this by: Supporting art-
ists to make work of excellence; Enabling
people to experience the arts; Working
with partners and stakeholders; Advising
and advocating In , the Arts Council
commissioned an independent Steering
Group to examine how it currently
addresses its role and remit. It has just
embarked on a process to develop a new
strategy for the arts in .
The Arts Council’s current Strategic
Statement continues to guide the
work and policies of the Arts Council. An
interview in the Irish Times last year of
Sheila Pratschke, Arts Council chairper-
son, suggests an awareness of a need to
change though cynics may find the lan-
guage suspiciously lacking in passion or
innovation . “We need to conceive of our
activities in a different way. We can’t keep
shrinking to fit the budget. We have to be
more imaginative and proactive. I would
say that all of us in the arts sector have
been talking to each other too much. We
need to turn outwards, towards the citi-
zen and the taxpayers, be more conscious
of audiences and families”.
Most of the companies and organ-
isations who receive funding are
urban-based, with more than in
Dublin city and county, in Galway city,
in Cork city and nine in Limerick. Most
smaller arts organisations get funding
through their local county council.
Funding for national cultural institu-
tions. such as the National Museum and
the National Library, is allocated sepa-
rately and directly by the Department
of Arts.
The Oireachtas grant to the Arts
Council in was £m, latterly sup-
plemented by lottery funding and steadily
increased from £.million in to
£m by . In , it was €m
with increased staff levels and adminis-
tration costs. In it was €m. An
Bord Snip Nua proposed in that
“substantial reductions in expenditure
on arts and culture were warranted given
the large increases in recent years”.
Reflecting this philistinism, between
and the Arts Council lost
staff , down from to . In the
funding had been €m but by it
was down to €m.
In for the first time in six years
the Council did not suffer a cut in funding,
most organisations have received similar
amounts to from the council which
is being allocated €. million. In a typi-
cally artistically promiscuous and tiring
statement the council said it was “mind-
ful in its allocations to help position the
arts to benefit from, and play a full part
in, the national recovery”.
There is a sense that funding is
awarded to the same old faces. When
cuts were implemented it tended to be
on the smaller, more precarious opera-
tions. Sheila Pratschke recognises this.
“We give % in recurring funding and
% in non-recurring funding. I’m sure
the strategic review is going to challenge
us with that almost autopilot recurring
funding”.
For , the Abbey Theatre gets €.
million, a decrease of €, on last
Our top-
heavy
Arts Council
Too long under strategic review by
administrators for any good it does
By Kevin Kiely
Humphreys
replied,
“Members
of the Arts
Council
are being
remunerated
because new
members
get the same
as the old
members”.
This is neither
credible nor
true
“
CULTURE ARTS COUNCIL
February 2015 55
affect the publishing of indigenous chil-
dren’s books as well as titles under its
literary fiction imprint, Brandon. Several
Irish authors have written to the Arts
Council asking that the cut in funds be
reconsidered. Funding under this scheme
is decided on by an independent panel,
not by the Arts Council itself. Ms McBride
said perhaps tellingly that the council is
currently in “strategy mode” and that a
full review of its operations is expected
to be concluded by the summer.
There is a perception that discrepan-
cies in grant allocations are the norm,
particularly for smaller organisations.
There is no complaint procedure except to
the Council as Big Brother. Complainers
are not encouraged. Those who ben-
efit from funding keep their mouths
shut. The Council ‘deals’ with well over
, people across the arts spec-
trum. Discrepancies in funding are the
Council’s method for controlling indi-
viduals and groups who petition them for
grants. The problem is most insidious at
the county council level where counties
get lump sums even though they are also
receiving separate festival, arts-centre
and theatre-company grants.
Unsurprisingly, specific problems
surface regularly. Last summer, singer
Patricia Flynn was due to get the €,
‘Deis’ grant for folk and traditional sing-
ing initiatives. However, following an
internal review launched amid concerns
of a conflict of interest it was not paid.
The singer’s son Paul Flynn is head of tra-
ditional arts at the Arts Council. While
he was not involved in approving the
grant, he contributed to the selection of
the panel that did. The grant was to be
put towards the creation of a multime-
dia archive.
Then-Arts Minister, Jimmy Deenihan,
said at the time that the chairwoman of
the Arts Council, Sheila Pratschke, had
undertaken to “review issues of conflict
of interest to ensure that there would not
be a recurrence”.
The Council often comes under politi-
cal pressure. In , Director Orlaith
McBride was forwarded a letter via
Deenihan from Brendan Howlin, on
Department of Public Expenditure and
Reform headed note paper on behalf of
Bui Bolg Productions. McBride replied
perfectly properly to Howlin: “It is with
regret that the grant to Bui Bolg was
reduced but this is due to the level of the
Arts Council’s cumulative funding reduc-
tions over the last number of years”.
In Bui Bolg was successful under
year, after recording a profit of over
€, for and a likely profit for
. The Gate’s funding is €,,
down from €, in . The the-
atre made a profit of €, in
and abridged accounts show a surplus
for .
Most of the major companies and
organisations will be satisfied with their
funding offers. Druid Theatre maintained
its allocation of €,. Project Arts
Centre in Dublin retained €,
and Macnas saw a cut from €,
in to €, this year. Opera
Theatre Company saw an increase from
€, to €,. Rough Magic
has taken a cut, down to €, from
€, previously.
Nearly all festivals saw their offers
remain at the same level for .
Galway Arts Festival has been given
€,; Kilkenny Arts Festival has
been offered €,; and the Tiger
Dublin Fringe has got €,. Dublin
Theatre Festival has benefited from a rare
increase, up from €, in to
€, in . Wexford Festival
Opera also saw its allocation rise by
€, to €. million for .
Every local authority in the State, along
with Ealaín na Gaeltachta, will receive
funding directly from the Arts Council,
a combined total of € million. Many will
also receive further support through the
funding of local authority-owned venues,
with funding to all venues for total-
ling €. million.
While many of the organisations
offered funding will bring their work
‘on the road’ over the course of the year,
the Arts Council will also invest an addi-
tional €. million in touring in .
This will see some extra perform-
ances, exhibitions and arts events being
brought to million people across the
entire island of Ireland.
Throughout the year, the Arts Council
will make further investment in the arts,
including bursaries for individual artists,
projects and awards. The Aosdána cnuas
has been maintained at last year’s level of
€, per annum.
It has been Council policy to keep
Lilliput Press, New Island, Gallery
Press, Dedalus and Salmon on substan-
tial grant-aid since the s. Gallery,
Dedalus and Salmon exclusively publish
poetry, largely by the rarefied members
of Aosdána.
The O’Brien Press which has a year-
track record in imaginative publishing
will have its annual grant slashed this
year, by % from €, to €,,
under the new Title-by-Title Scheme
introduced in . The Arts Council is
now funding individual titles instead of
the publisher as a whole. Orlaith McBride
told RTÉ that this is being done to create
more opportunities for literary publish-
ers. Michael O’Brien said the change will
There is a
sense that
funding is
awarded to
the same old
faces. When
cuts were
implemented
it tended to
be on the
smaller, more
precarious
operations
“
56February 2015
is neither credible nor true. Clearly new
members could volunteer at the time of
application not to take a stipend.
The current director, Orlaith McBride,
has a ‘basic salary’, according to a
report, of €, compared to the aver-
age bursary to individuals of €,, or
and Cnuas-recipient Aosdanaí of €,
. McBride once told the Irish Times
‘Style’ section that she did her annual “big
shop” in New York.
Arts Council administration comes
at too high a price. Unrestricted and
unstipulated grants to arts institutions
also involve a large percentage spent on
administration costs, particularly sala-
ries to the ‘Directors’. The Gate received
€, while its grandee Director,
Michael Colgan, was snaffling a salary
of €,.
The Royal Hibernian Academy, whose
eminences have contributed at least two
family members to the staff of the Arts
Council, received €, in and
shells out a six-figure salary to its Director
Patrick T Murphy (former Arts Council
chairman). Poetry Ireland received a
grant of €, in , basically
for printing a quarterly newsletter for
its members and a bi-annual partisan
magazine entitled Poetry Ireland Review.
Maureen Kennelly, director of Poetry
Ireland has a fulltime staff of six with a
board of ten.
Then there is Aosdána, a self-designed
group which garners a yearly haul for its
-odd (the term is apposite) mem-
bers who see themselves as above others
who have to apply for bursaries com-
petitively. Bursaries are not granted
perpetually to the same individual, and
are far less than the annual amount paid
to Aosdána members. Since its founding
in the s under the hooded watch
of Charles Haughey, the primary func-
tion of Aosdána has been to ensure its
membership continues siphoning off the
cnuas, a yearly hand-out of €, to
the self-elected members. In , the
Arts Council had its budget slashed by a
quarter while Aosdána’s + members,
politically better got, and in receipt of the
prized €,, suffered no reduction in
their hand-out.
There has developed a symbiosis over
the years between the Arts Council and
certain members of Aosdána such as
the administrators of publishing houses
Gallery, Dedalus and Salmon, including
Peter Fallon, John F Deane, Pat Boran
and Jessie Lendennie. These poets pub-
lish themselves with the benefit of Arts
Council subsidies.
They do not have to make a profit or
even sell very many copies. As early as
, Fallon’s Gallery was in receipt of
€, while in he received
€, and in will take home
€,.
Fallon and Gallery have grossed well
over €m in grants over the years. Salmon
received as much as €, in ,
€, in and will get €,
in . Dedalus received €, in
, €, in and will get
€, in .
Of course, there is nothing improper
in any of this.
There is much goodwill for the arts
in Ireland but this translated, a genera-
tion ago, into an indulgence of top-heavy
administration and a lack of seriousness
of artistic purpose.
The clearest incarnation of this is the
Abbey Theatre, exposed by and interna-
tional evaluation panel in as simply
not showing enough world-class theatre.
Arts administration in Ireland, led by the
Arts Council, needs a cold shower.
Grants should be linked to excellence,
originality, accessibility, value for money
and transparency of expenditure. •
another Arts Council funding head, the
only ‘street arts’ organisation to receive
‘annual funding’. Howlin would’ve been
pleased.
In the Arts Council Music
Network Recording Scheme which
provides support for performers and
composers working primarily in non-
commercial genres. The scheme is open
to musicians of all genres who are of
Irish nationality or resident in Ireland.
But in fact it was represented by a small
panel taken only from representatives of
the contemporary and classical, not for
example the pop, worlds.
Worse still, one of the panel members,
Kate Ellis, was directly linked to three
of the nine successful applicants, Crash
Ensemble (of which she is actually co-ar-
tistic director), Judith Ring and Yurodny
Ensemble. Sharon Rollston, CEO of Music
Network and another of the panel mem-
bers explained: “Where there is a conflict
of interest, of course, the panel member
states their interest and absents them-
selves from the room, as is the normal
practice in adjudication panels”.
The issue is not a personal one, and
concerns optics rather than propriety.
It illuminates the fact there is a structural
problem with the panel composition,
particularly in a small world like that of
Ireland’s serious music.
In October , then-Minister
Deenihan announced a set of reforms for
the organisations that are funded by
his department. Board members of cer-
tain major institutions would operate on
a pro bono basis ie unpaid. Board posi-
tions were advertised stating that they
were ‘pro bono’ positions.
One of those advertisements
included positions at the Arts Council.
Subsequently, Fianna Fáil’s Seán
O’Fearghail asked Minister Heather
Humphreys: “Have things changed? Are
the members of the Arts Council being
remunerated? Is their remuneration
in addition to expenses they are being
paid, if they are being paid expenses? If
this has happened, was there any public
announcement of the change of position
by the Department of Arts, Heritage and
the Gaeltacht, or is it something that has
happened quietly behind the scenes?”.
But as so often with this government
reform was illusory.
Humphreys replied, “Members of the
Arts Council are being remunerated
because new members get the same as
the old members. If we want to change
that, the legislation must change”. This
CULTURE ARTS COUNCIL
part-funded by the
Arts Council
February 2015 57
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