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Sat 03 Mar 2010Snuffing out our creative industry is not 'smart' economising
CULTURE SHOCK:ART, LIKE NATURE, is an ecosystem. If you take one part out of it, it affects all the others – sometimes in disproportionate ways. Diversity is not mere profusion – it is the expression of the range of possibilities. If that range is diminished, everything within it is impoverished. At the moment, the biodiversity of Irish theatre is under severe threat.
All the rhetoric about the arts in Ireland includes the idea that artistic expression is not a choice but a necessity. But we don’t really believe this. As soon as money gets tight, the arts become an optional extra, a luxury we can no longer afford. An effective €9 million cut in the budget for the Arts Council is the expression of this eternal truth.
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