Arts Council delay

WHY HAS the Arts Council been left without a chair and a full complement of members for almost four months? Understandably, the global and local economic crisis has been of sufficient magnitude to keep almost all else off the agenda.

 But the lacuna is unprecedented and the delay in making these appointments leaves the council in a weak position as the gatekeeper for the arts. That this has occurred at a time when funding to the council has been cut by €9 million, putting the future plans of many organisations in serious doubt, might make the suspicious-minded inclined to think that it is a deliberate strategy to contain any hostile reaction.

A truncated council, left without seven members, including a chairperson, is not in the strongest position to go on the offensive or fully get to grips with the consequences created by the recent cuts. To his great credit, deputy chairman Maurice Foley issued one of the most robust responses from the council in years, putting these cuts in context but also casting an ominous shadow over the whole sector. It seems that funding decisions - and commitments - already given to many organisations are back on the table for reconsideration.

The guessing game as to who will succeed Olive Braiden has been allowed to linger for far too long. It has resulted in much idle and misleading speculation. The Minister has had plenty of time to consider the vacancies and seek replacements. Of course, in the current climate, this must be proving difficult: who would want to be party to the implementation of unpopular and damaging decisions that will set back the development of the arts in Ireland?

In the face of declining tax revenues and the challenge to maintain essential services in health and education, reducing the spend on cultural activity is not going to create much of a stir. But the arts now absorb a great many people into a workforce that comes at an almost disgracefully cheap cost, as surveys have shown.

While the arts may not be at the core of economic thinking, they are, as former minister, the late Séamus Brennan, put it, "truly central to our wellbeing as a nation and to our future as an economy". The composition and calibre of the new council is vitally important, as is the need for a fusion of different skills and backgrounds, artistic and entrepreneurial, but most important is the creation of a body that will be supportive, independent and tough-minded in its main function, that of advocacy on behalf of all art forms.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times