Madam, - While Mr Michael O'Brien's disappointment at the Arts Council's decision not to provide funding in 2003 to O'Brien Press successful children's titles is quite understandable, his letter to you (April 1st) went on to paint only a partial picture of Arts Council provision for literature for children and young people.
This year, the Arts Council provided a grant of€180,000 to the children's literature organisation, Children's Books Ireland to enable it to run its annual children's book festival, publish a quarterly journal on children's literature, administer the annual Bisto Children's Book Awards and run a wide range of other events and services for parents, teachers, children's writers and librarians.
The Council has also provided €35,000 to Clé, the Irish Book Publishers' Association.
While it is true that funding to Poetry Ireland has been reduced compared to last year's grant, the €250,000 provided to that organisation this year, will support a wide range of activities including an extensive literature-in-education programme.
Of course, neither Mr O'Brien nor your other correspondents have acknowledged that as recently as 2000, annual funding to this organisation was at the level of only €182,000 per annum.
Mr O'Brien has chosen to interpret the Arts Council's decision not to provide funding for his excellent publishing operation as punishment for his success; an alternative view might be, that with the benefit of many years of sustained annual funding (totalling more than €230,000 since 1993), the Council's decision in 2003 may be seen as an indicator of the sustainability of the Press at this time and of its capacity to produce excellent new writing for children without the assistance of public funding.
Yours, etc,,
SINÉAD MAC AODHA, Literature Officer, The Arts Council, 70 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.