Arts Council Resignations

Within the space of one week, the Arts Council has suffered three significant resignations

Within the space of one week, the Arts Council has suffered three significant resignations. The chairman, Dr Brian Farrell, and two of its better-known members, Mr Paul McGuinness and Ms Jane Gogan, have all stood down, pleading "pressure of work". While all three individuals undoubtedly lead very busy lives, the situation does not reflect well on the health of this voluntary board. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde's dictum on parents, to lose one may be a misfortune, to lose three looks like carelessness.

All three were regarded as supportive of the management style of the council's current director, Ms Patricia Quinn. This has inevitably attracted speculation that the tensions which have beset the institution for the past year are approaching some kind of resolution. Ms Quinn's management is regarded as dynamic in some quarters, high-handed in others. The lack of transparency with which these internal debates have been conducted tend to feed such speculation rather than answer it.

The council and its executive repeat the time-honoured mantra that there is "no crisis". The fact that the Minister for Arts and Culture, Ms Sile de Valera, has chosen this week to hold unscheduled discussions with the council suggests a different story. The Arts Council's official mandate, based on the Arts Acts of 1951 and 1973, is to stimulate public interest in the arts, and promote their knowledge, appreciation and practice, to assist in improving their standards and to advise the Government on artistic matters. This has traditionally translated into a function of deciding what share of State funding should be given to which particular artists and arts organisations.

Since the mid-1990s - and the establishment of a department for arts and culture - the council has taken on a higher profile in making arts policy, and produced valuable though time-consuming reports and surveys to explore and advance this new role. Over the same period, the council has finally won a battle in its decades-old war with government for more funding, and has seen its annual allocation quadruple from 1991 to 2001. The already considerable workload of both councillors and staff has multiplied accordingly.

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Managing such a radical and rapid degree of change is not easy for any organisation. Those who cling to traditional ways of doing things will feel threatened and those who want to advance faster will feel frustrated. It should, however, be possible for a creative accommodation to be reached, in which experience from the past is a fruitful source of inspiration for the new departures needed. Unfortunately, the indications from within both the council and its professional staff suggest that such an accommodation is not being created, and that two entrenched camps face each other in a state of mutual hostility and suspicion. Personalities, not policies, sometimes seem to figure prominently.

The one thing which is certain is that this damaging conflict must be resolved soon, and in such a manner that the public, which funds the council, can see the issues. It would be unacceptable if the Arts Council, with an unprecedented supply of public money and an arts constituency which brings such incalculable cultural and material wealth to the life of the nation, should remain bogged down in internal squabbles for much longer.