Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

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.