Cuts in arts budget damaging culture and economy

Martin Cullen, the Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism, announced this week that over 3m people visited Irish cultural institutions in 2009. 

This calls into question the rationality of recent brutal cuts to the arts budget and indicates that greater investment in the arts and cultural tourism could make a significant contribution to economic recovery.

(Picture: An image from 'Johnny Patterson the Singing Irish Clown' by Barabbas Productions, one of three theatre companies which the arts council ceased funding this month)

In a statement released on Monday, Minister Cullen said: “[A]ll of our cultural institutions play a significant role in our cultural tourism product and the exceptional quality and diversity of our museum exhibits, our manuscripts, documents, and various artworks on display are critical to the ongoing success of these institutions and serve as a reminder of our national ability to invent, create and inspire. They also demonstrate how Irish culture continues to be recognised worldwide.” 

This announcement comes in the wake of severe cuts to the budget of the Arts Council earlier this month, which ceased funding to 30 cultural institutions including the Irish Writers Centre and three major theatre companies, whilst cutting the funding of a further 313 projects. 

These cuts are due to a 5.6 per cent, or €6.5m reduction in the Arts Council's budget resulting in an overall budget of €69m for 2010. However, this reduction is compounded by the fact that €2.4m of the 2010 grant was spent subsidising the 2009 budget, bringing the total reduction to almost €9m. 

Some of this reduction will be absorbed by the Council themselves through a 30 per cent reduction in administration costs. The remainder will be divided across the arts and will be invested in 354 separate projects ranging from opera, film, dance, theatre, literature and the visual arts. 

Earlier this month the Arts Council said that "faced with a particularly difficult budgetary environment it has not been possible to maintain the same level of funding to the same number of organisations as in the past". They added that "the Council also prioritised regional balance, where key venues and festivals have been supported to produce the best of the arts for people right across the country" and concluded that they will be "safeguarding funding for new and emerging artistic talent".

Although some Theatre companies have had their funding completely cut, the industry still received over €13m in funding. An amount that eclipses the €4m allocated to the visual arts and the less than €2m awarded to literature. 

On hearing of the failure of their application a spokesperson for the Irish Writers Centre said: "[T]he allocation of resources does not reflect the primacy of literature, quite the contrary, despite the enormous economic contribution that literature makes to the country through cultural tourism...the decision of the Arts Council to jeopardise the Irish Writers Centre is myopic in the extreme." 

In a letter to the editor of the Irish Times on the 13 February, Sean MacCarthaigh, the director of Public Affairs for the Arts Council, said: "In 2010 we will continue to assert – and prove – that our society, our economy and the Exchequer reap enormous dividends from that public money."

The National Campaign for the Arts (NCFA), an umbrella arts organistation which aims to underline the role and impact of the arts and culture in the country said it is "relieved that many of the demands it was petitioning for have been retained." 

They continued by saying that “the Campaign also acknowledges that while the 5.6 per cent cut to Arts Council funding will cause hardship among artists and arts organizations, the NCFA is committed to working with the Minister for Arts and funding agencies in the drive for national recovery.”

In fact it is now widely believed that artists and arts organisations can play a pivotal role in the country's economic recovery. Last November an independent report was commissioned by the Arts Council and carried out by Indecon, the International Economic Consultants, to investigate the economic contribution and impact of the arts in Ireland. 

The report found that "the arts and cultural activities make a significant contribution to the quality of life and societal cohesion". It continued by saying that "the arts are a significant economic sector and their economic impact may be larger than generally perceived by economists and policy makers."

The report also found that the exchequer benefited greatly from the arts sector and estimated that the total tax revenue earned by the exchequer by Arts Council supported organisations and individuals amounted to €53.7m in 2008. It also estimated that the wider arts sector contributed €382m in tax in 2006 and currently employs over 95,000 people. 

As confirmed by Minister Cullen's announcement this week, the report found that in 2008, almost 3.3m overseas tourists visited places of historical or cultural interest in Ireland. In a survey carried out by Indecon they found that "traditional Irish culture is either the second most important or most important" attraction to tourists. 

Most relevantly, the report concluded: "Ireland has a reputation as a nation with a deep cultural tradition and heritage, and a core part of this tradition comes from our linkages with the arts, from literature and music to theatre and dance." 

These findings, along with Minister Cullen's recent statement, prove that the arts are not only culturally but economically invaluable, and define how we and the rest of the world see Ireland.