Front Row

You read it here first: Dublin City Council decided on Monday to spend €35,000 building an enormous mound of sand in front of Dublin Castle in the early summer.

That's the kind of information you miss if you don't pay attention to the council's role as a small but not insignificant arts-funding agency. Ah, it's art. That explains it. The "sand sculpture" will be the work of the Duthain Dealbh group and is a new venture for the council, which disbursed €349,180 on Monday night. Other recipients included Eircom Dublin Theatre Festival (€35,000), Project arts centre (€21,600), Dublin Fringe Festival (€18,000), the Ark (€10,500) and Axis Ballymun (€12,700), the last two representing instalments of three-year funding agreements.

These three-year agreements are a significant, Arts Council-style development. Among the outfits that have modest three-year agreements with the council are the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, TEAM Educational Theatre Company, Temple Bar Properties, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Samhain 2002, the Gallery of Photography, Irish Modern Dance Theatre and a range of stage companies, including Rough Magic, Íomhá Ildánach, Fishamble, Bedrock and Barabbas.

From a cursory reading, it looks like a scattergun approach to cultural provision. The council's grants often go to companies and events that are not funded by the Arts Council; the Anna Livia International Opera Festival is an example. The council's arts officer, Jack Gilligan, says he has no difficulty recommending start-up companies - which, of course, can't attract Arts Council funding if they can't get started. There is also an understandable concentration on free open-air events and community arts. Gilligan is an apostle for the notion of access: "You can have all the facilities in the world, but if the connection isn't made to the public, it's cynical, really."

He agrees that better co-operation with the Arts Council is desirable and that the doubling up of administration involved when both City Hall and Merrion Square fund an event is not ideal. He is also unhappy with the level of funding the council dispenses. If the Hugh Lane Gallery and the library service are taken out of the picture, the council is left with not much more than €500,000 - €1 per person - in cultural funding. This figure includes funding for the St Patrick's Day Festival - a council initiative - Dublin Writers' Festival, bursaries and training grants. Among these are the writer-in-residence scheme at Project (the current holder is Nicholas Kelly), the Thom McGinty street-performance award and €4,000 bursaries for training in literature, drama, music, dance and visual art.

The council is developing an arts and culture strategy, steered by Ciarán Mac Gonigal. A more focused, strategic approach; far more co-ordination with the Arts Council; and far more money should be on its agenda.

• Opera Ireland has passed the first hurdle on the way to getting its affairs in order. Late last year, an accumulated deficit of the order of €508,000/£400,000 put the company's winter season in doubt. And, even after productions of Verdi's Don Carlo and Handel's Giulio Cesare had been saved, the company was left in crisis. The longer-term rescue plan involved making a case to the Arts Council for a one-off top-up, amounting to three-quarters of the debt. The remaining €127,000/£100,000 would be saved by paring back projected activities, the main plank being the dropping of Janácek's Jenufa from the forthcoming spring season in favour of extra performances of Bizet's Carmen.
• The Arts Council, which has rescued Opera Ireland with "one-off" payments in the past, has again proved to be a dependable knight in shining armour. The council presented the company's case sympathetically to the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, which duly forwarded the requested funds. The net outcome is that Opera Ireland has not only been allowed to default from the activities proposed in its three-year-funding cycle by the Arts Council, but also handsomely rewarded in the process.
• In the context of the Arts Council's overall budget, the €381,000/£300,000 adjustment may not seem a lot of money. But bearing in mind the case pleaded by David Collopy, the company's executive director, in these pages last December, a comparison may be appropriate with the sort of major European opera provider he sees as relevant examples. Take English National Opera, with an annual grant from the Arts Council of England of £13.3 million sterling (€21.7 million). Were it to need a rescue plan of the same proportion, the sum would amount to no less than £6.3 million sterling (€10.3 million). Take a company better endowed with public funding and the result would be even more striking.

arts@irish-times.ie