Board to death by the spent music task force

When John O'Donoghue returned to his office in the Department of Fun, sorry, Arts, Sport & Tourism after the recent cabinet reshuffle, there was one less problem on his desk to deal with. After three years, two bulky reports and not a whole lot more, the Music Board of Ireland has called it a day.

The minister, we can imagine, breathed a sigh of relief at the news. No longer would anyone be bugging him about popular music and taking up valuable time best spent giving free cash to the GAA, plamásing tourist interests in Kerry and swearing loudly about the latest crisis involving those numpties at the Abbey.

However, it's questionable if the minister or anyone else really expended much time or energy on the Music Board of Ireland during its tenure. Set up on an interim basis by then-minister Sile de Valera in May 2001, the board promised much but delivered very little.

That a body charged with identifying ways to develop popular music in this country could have proven to be so lacklustre and unsuccessful beggars belief. Of course, it didn't help that the board was a badly-devised, under-funded, unloved, unexciting quango more interested, like many such bodies, in administration than action.

But the board was doomed to be a failure from the get-go for many reasons.

Part funded by the music industry, as well as the taxpayer, there was therefore very little chance of the board criticising the widespread bad industry practices which prohibit and stymie popular music development in this country.

The board's members were drawn from the ranks of the usual suspects, those senior members of Irish music's permanent establishment who will always be found on one committee after another. Were they really going to come up with fresh, innovative and practical solutions, having failed to do so on previous occasions? With that line-up, the board was never going to be maverick, outspoken and dynamic about what it was doing or seeking to do.

The board published two sizeable reports in February 2003. However, neither "Shaping the Future" nor "The Economic Significance of the Irish Music Industry" contained anything new, both being largely compilations of previous reports issued by different bodies over a 10-year period, which came to the same conclusions and recommendations we'd heard many times before. It didn't really matter, though, because there never was any intention to act on these proposals.

The "interim" basis of the board also didn't help its case, the department refusing to dig into its coffers to put it on a similar statutory footing to the Film Board. Maybe the minister took one look at the board members and said "feck this for a game of cowboys". Or maybe the department, like the Arts Council, sees little merit in supporting and developing Irish rock and pop at a domestic level. After all, they think, it's not really art.

And there's the crux of the problem. Playing in a rock band or producing electronic music in your studio is still viewed as a hobby, something to do in your spare time, something which has no cultural significance.

If you want further proof of this, go to the Arts Council's website and examine the lists of recipients of its bursaries and grants. Music funds go largely to classical composers and contemporary music merchants. Highly commendable, but where's the funding for rock or electronic acts to record, tour and develop? They also need seed capital to get to the next stage.

There may be an argument that rock/pop acts never apply for such funding, but there's a counter-argument that they are just not welcome at the trough. Rock 'n' roll is the Millwall of the arts in Ireland - nobody likes us, but we don't care.

The Music Board of Ireland failed because of this lack of interest in popular music which permeates both government and arts bodies. This attitude ensures that any similar group which emerges in the next couple of years is just wasting everyone's time. If there's no will, there's no way, and this government is as interested in popular music as Seamus Brennan is in social welfare.

jimcarroll@irish-times.ie