ABOUT 30 arts organisations across Ireland are expected to lose State funding, following the Arts Council’s cut of about 6 per cent in the December budget, and the Abbey Theatre is to lose €1.1 million of its grant.
Theatres, festivals, opera and dance companies, traditional arts, venues and other Irish arts bodies will learn on Monday what level of State funding they can expect this year, as the Arts Council yesterday posted letters to more than 350 arts organisations with details of their grants, totalling over €49 million.
The cut in the Arts Council’s own budget (from €73.35 million last year down to €69.15 million for 2010), brought its funding back to 2007 funding levels.
As news begins to trickle through to large and small bodies across Ireland funded by the Arts Council, it said yesterday that “faced with a particularly difficult budgetary environment – the council has €9 million less to invest in the arts than in 2009 – it has not been possible to maintain the same level of funding to the same number of organisations as in the past”.
It tried to “ensure organisations can continue to bring the best of the arts to audiences across Ireland” and “emphasis was given to achieving a regional balance, on enabling the arts to reach more people, and on supporting artists to make work”.
The council’s own administrative budget has been reduced by 30 per cent.
The grant for the Abbey Theatre, by far the largest individual organisation funded directly by the Arts Council, is €7.25 million this year, down from €8.35 million last year.
A number of organisations – believed to be about 30 – will lose Arts Council support altogether either this year or next, though they may have been offered some funding for programming for the first months of the year.
While the amount of funding has decreased by about 12 per cent across all art forms, the relative proportions for funding of different art forms is broadly similar to previous years, with the exception of opera, where funding is cut from €3.9 million in 2009 to €3.6 million this year.
Opera companies will have their funding cut by 6 to 7 per cent this year, in a move that looks like an effort to ensure Opera Ireland, Opera Theatre Company and Wexford Festival Opera will each be able to produce work this year, albeit at a reduced level. Minister for Arts Martin Cullen recently announced that he will this year set up a new national opera company based in Dublin.
Nationally some 313 companies will have funding cuts this year, while just 10 will see an increase and 24 remain at the same level of funding as last year. Arts venues across the country have generally had their funding cut by less than some production companies.