I welcome Ms Olive Braiden, the new chairperson of the Arts Council; Mr. Jerome Hynes and Ms Patricia Quinn. We have met Ms Quinn before; Ms Braiden and Mr. Hynes are new faces but they are very welcome. We look forward to hearing an outline of where the new committee is going. Will it start to beat a new path or continue on the existing one? What are its priorities under the new stewardship? I am aware that the issue of funding will be important and that we are approaching the time of the Estimates, but we are also aware that this is a new council and we are wondering whether the Minister has achieved the fully representative council for which everybody was striving. Where will the council go from here?
Arts Council: Presentation.
Ms Olive Braiden
I thank the Chairman and the members of the committee for inviting the council to attend this meeting. My colleagues and I look forward to answering any queries members may have after my short opening remarks.
As members know, the Arts Council was appointed very recently. It is a very active and vibrant gathering of expertise from within and without the arts world and we have hit the ground running. This morning I was in Mullingar launching its first arts class and I was interested to see the enthusiasm of groups around the country, particularly as there is an arts officer in almost every area to keep things going. The new Arts Council is committed to communicating more effectively with the arts community, the Oireachtas and the general public. We realise that the connection between the arts and society needs to be much stronger. It must also be a two-way dialogue. That dialogue will help members, as representatives of the people, to understand the benefits that come from investment in the arts, whether it is purely in economic terms or in terms of our development as a society. It is my hope that as chairperson of the Arts Council I will be able to consider ways of implementing a more formal process of dialogue between the arts sector and its many interested audiences over the coming months. This council will be in place for five years. I have spent much of my life listening and learning and I know the new council is prepared to do all these things and is keen to start work from day one.
It is undisputed that the arts have a unique value in society, opening our minds and enhancing our lives. There is much to be done and the new council will be considering many issues. These include the arts in education - in which I know the Chairman has an interest - and the arts as a realistic ambition and career. It is sometimes forgotten that so many people have a full-time career in the arts sector. Another important issue is the broadening participation in the arts and enlarging audiences across all fields, including the traditional arts. We also hope to raise standards in leadership and in the management of the arts and we are particularly interested in the international success of Irish arts and artists. We are also interested in bringing the arts closer to local communities, which is something in which I know members are also interested. We hope to have the chance to examine what needs to be done and consider what was not done in the past. An arts plan has been in place since the time of the last council and we will be considering that and prioritising what we consider to be necessary within it. We will always work within our budget, so we hope we will not be too constrained in that. We plan to give a strategic framework to the plan and identify each year what we consider can be achieved.
I do not intend to elaborate on all these issues today, but I will speak about two of them. "Economics" and "economic impact" are not words we always associate with the arts. However, the arts is a substantial and important sector which gives valuable employment and creates important economic activity. Like so many other sectors, it is very badly affected by economic shocks. As members know, the arts sector suffered a severe shock last year. While the country has made great progress in funding the arts over a period of years, it did start from a very low base. Then, in 2003, funding dipped severely to €44 million. We do not know what the allocation is now but we expect to know next month - we are, of course, expecting a favourable response from the Minister. We hope that all members will be lobbying for that so that we may hear some good news.
For next year, despite all the increases in Government support obtained between 1997 and 2000, we cannot afford to take any drop in funding. While we accept that there are many competing forces in a developing economy, the arts cannot be left behind - not just because they have a unique value to society, but also because at times of difficulty it is important that minds remain open to new ideas, and one way of doing that is through the arts. The arts can be a catalyst for driving imagination, stimulating curiosity and provoking us all, as a society and an economy, to lift ourselves out of our difficulties and get back on track.
Let us consider the hard facts of last year's dip in funding. It meant that approximately 1,000 people lost their jobs. Productions and tours were cancelled, some artists went abroad, and uncertainty reigned again in a sector that for five years had enjoyed forward planning and everything that is necessary for success. Members can understand how difficult it was for those in the arts sector to see so many jobs being lost and to be obliged to cancel arrangements. It is understandable how badly people took it. The effects of this are still felt in the arts sector and many people are very critical of the arts council because of this. However, we can only work within the budget we have. Our approach to funding for next year is simple. We want to put the sector back on track. We need to achieve the level of funding originally designated for the second year of the arts plan - that is, last year - which is €53.7 million.
Some examples may give members a sense of the demand that is there. Last Friday was the deadline for most organisations to apply for Arts Council funding and we received 370 applications with requests for funding amounting to €60 million. If we were to meet that demand we would need more than €70 million, but we would only be able to make grants of €38 million if we were to receive the same amount of funding as last year. Although the level of demand shows that there is great vibrancy in the sector, it inevitably leads to disappointment and creates pressure when people apply and are turned down. We are not asking for €70 million. Perhaps people will criticise the council for not demanding more, but we are acknowledging the reality and asking for what should have come this year to come next year. We consider that we have been very understanding of current economic conditions. Our position is fair and I hope it will be accepted as such.
The effort to achieve geographical equality in the arts is also related to financial issues. As a country person, I know there is often a perception that the Arts Council is elitist and Dublin-based, but this is not correct. One of the best things to happen - those members from various areas of the country will have seen this on the ground - has been the development of local arts centres and regional theatres. As I mentioned earlier, I was in Mullingar this morning, and when I saw the list of arts centres all over the country I was heartened. Of course, funding is required to plan and maintain an arts centre. We are concerned because many new arts centres may not receive the funding required to continue their good work. Regional centres cost serious money. Our calculation is that the annual running costs of a centre amount to 10% of the capital costs, so if a centre cost €1.5 million to build and fit out it requires €150,000 to run each year. It is necessary for these centres to host touring productions and bring diversity to the area or people will not support it. I hope the members will support us in every way in ensuring that pressure is put on the Minister for Finance so that we can look forward to receiving funding at the figure for which we asked last year. We consider that a reasonable amount.
We may be victims of our own success. As a former music teacher and musician I can see the vibrancy that exists in the arts sector around the country. With each theatre and arts venue we erect we are creating something that must be sustained but, speaking on behalf of the committee, I am convinced that they are there for the right reasons and must be maintained and expanded. We did start from a very low base.
The last time the director of the Arts Council appeared before the committee I pushed the idea that there should be something like a national lottery grant available for small communities so that groups, whether marching bands, brass and reed bands or traditional ensembles, could obtain funding. There was a recent advertisement in the newspapers of grants from €1,000 to €10,000. Perhaps Ms Braiden could comment on that and on the limitations involved, because the council must be snowed under with applications. From County Donegal alone I could rattle off the names of 1,000 groups who would like to apply.
I was glad to hear Ms Braiden mention such issues as the arts and education, arts as a realistic ambition and career and broadening of participation. This committee has just completed a study of arts as a basic building block. In some respects the focus of the study was on the economic advantage of participation in the arts, because the arts pay for themselves in so many ways, even beyond what Ms Braiden mentioned. Perhaps she could comment on the Music Network report, A National System of Local Music Education Services, where it fits into the policy or plans of the council and how it will fit into the formal arts dialogue. There is no point in having many people reinventing the wheel - the ideas must be pulled together.
I am sure the council would like to see multi-annual budgeting, as we all would. I am glad that the special regional focus, another of my pet subjects, was mentioned. When there was talk of axing the RTE Concert Orchestra and the RTE Symphony Orchestra due to financial pressure, I could not understand why they could not go to Donegal, break into groups and go into primary schools to generate interest and, ultimately, an audience for a concert. It would be self-financing and children would learn a great deal. I am glad to see that the RTE Symphony Orchestra has since been in Donegal. The next time it visits, it should make tickets as affordable as possible. When an orchestra goes out to the regions it uses travel expenses to justify high prices so affordability and a regional spread are important.
I welcome the Arts Council delegation to the committee and wish it the best of luck. There is a major challenge facing the Arts Council over the next five years. Although the arts are vibrant, there is a major demand for financing. The Chairman of the Arts Council, Ms Olive Braiden, will be seen as a figurehead and is probably already aware that hers is not an easy task.
The arts community was devastated by the reduction in funding last year. The arts plan for 2002-06 was included in the programme for Government and funding for 2003 was supposed to be €53.7 million but the arts only received €44 million. People had planned for an increase with multi-annual funding and it created difficulties in the arts world.
I am glad the delegation quantified the number of jobs lost - 1,000 - but I would say the figure is even higher. Companies such as Red Kettle Theatre Company and Druid Theatre Company lost funding and O'Brien Press lost its grant entirely at a time when there are very few books by young Irish people being published, with most books being imported. Ballet Ireland was decimated by a funding reduction from €235,000 to €60,000, which puts things in perspective. What is the position of the Arts Council on publishing and ballet? These major questions should be considered.
Druid Theatre Company's funding was cut by €75,000 from €550,000 to €475,000. It is having a good run with John B. Keane's play "Sharon's Grave" but the company cannot bring it to Kerry, the home of the author, because it lacks funds. It enjoyed a good run in Galway and in Dublin; it has gone to Sligo and will be back in Dublin but it could not be taken to Kerry. That is how these cuts affect small communities.
The Chairman mentioned what funding reductions have done to her constituency and all of us would have something similar to report. Good productions are fine but unless people experience them throughout the country, culturally we lose out. Communities that are deprived of theatre access in Dublin, Cork or Galway are being victimised. Graffiti Theatre Company was unable for the first time in 20 years to implement its post-primary education programme. The feedback I have received on performances of that company has always been positive but this year it was unable to fulfil its programme and it is the young people who are losing out. That is a brief overview but it demonstrates the nature of the challenge before the council.
I am particularly interested in the traditional arts and they receive just 1% of the total arts funding. I hope that in future allocations the traditional arts will be looked after. The Minister has singled out the traditional arts in debates so we want to see what funding they will receive.
There is a major challenge ahead of the Arts Council and we should be able to come back later and ask more questions.
If I can get round everyone, alltopics could be covered.
There has been a proliferation of arts centres and theatres throughout the State because of the CDIS programme, the access programme and EU funded programmes but now they are being scrubbed. I am involved with a writers' centre in Listowel which does not receive any funding; it will find it difficult to survive. Will the Arts Council be putting together a programme that will identify the main arts centres and work with them and support them in every way possible? If 10% of funding could be used it would be a major achievement. We should examine what we have and ensure existing centres are viable and have proper programmes in place. That would be a great achievement.
Fáiltím roimh an toscaireacht ón gComhairle Ealaíon. Tréaslaím leis an chathaoirleach nua agus an leas-chathaoirleach. Tá súil agam go mbainfidh siad taitneamh agus tairbhe as a bpost nua. In welcoming the delegation from the Arts Council, I congratulate the new chairman and deputy chairman and wish them well in their offices. Based on their background, I know they will do a magnificent job and Oireachtas Members will be supportive in every way possible. I am not sure if one declares an interest when his wife is on the Arts Council but I will do so. It does not pay a dividend, I should make that clear.
We had a stimulating debate on the arts in Ireland and it is good for the Arts Council that it took place - it was an open and generous debate in the main. My interest lies, like Deputy Deenihan, in the traditional arts and it does no harm to refer to them, not just because we are from provincial areas but because we realise their value in the artistic world. As the Minister said, there was more debate on the traditional arts than on the Criminal Assets Bureau and that is a good sign. The arts world will be the healthier for it if we do not see it as being partisan but as creating balance within the debate.
I am particularly pleased with some of the comments of the chairperson of the Arts Council and with the vision she outlined in her speech. She has captured exceptionally well the atmosphere and tone of the debate, which will be helpful to the Arts Council in the long run. The worst anybody would like to hear said was that the Arts Council was irrelevant to the community at large. It behoves us all to ensure that this is not the case and that we recognise the great arts activity now available not just in Dublin but throughout the country.
I would like to hear an expanded view as to how the developmental role of the Arts Council coincides with the funding role. Most people in the past saw the Arts Council as a funding body, which was a pity. In recent years there have been suggestions that there should be a developmental role, and I wonder how that happens. I take it this will form part of the process of improved communications with the sector because there is a need for that improved communication.
My honest belief is that a great deal of the negativity which may have emanated from the debate came as a result of lack of communication in the past, and that may have resulted, in turn, from the lack of a development role. People just saw it as a matter of getting a grant from the Arts Council or being refused. A developmental role would create a greater feeling of ownership of the Arts Council by the community at large and I am glad to see that built into the chairman's vision.
Another area has kept coming up in the debate, and we could perhaps have a subsidiary or extended debate on it. We use terms like "amateur" and "professional", and I am never sure whether they equate to standards or to occupation in Arts Council policy. To give an example, Tipperary produced a development plan which was withdrawn very quickly when the following matter was pointed out to them. They only included in the category of "professional" those who were receiving funding from the Arts Council, and they said they got that definition from the Arts Council. That worried me very much because that would make no sense whatsoever. People may be receiving no money from the Arts Council because they did not apply, but they may be exceptionally proficient in their art form. That definition was included in the development plan in Tipperary and the consultant said they got that definition - it is not me saying this - from the Arts Council.
This should be corrected for the health of the arts world. If we say that the definition of "professional" includes only those making a living from the arts, we are doing a terrible injustice to the future of arts activity. That is well worth revisiting, and I pose the question as to whether professionalism equates with standards or occupation. I prefer to think that it equates to standards.
On the basis of the figures presented I am very worried about the arts centres, and I know Ms Quinn would feel the very same given her background and understanding. The same applies to many heritage centres. When we were somewhat more affluent people decided to put centres in place. By and large they were very ambitious, sometimes over-ambitious, and a figure of €1.5 million would not be a good example. The average centre is costing €4 to €5 million, some as much as €7 to €8 million. If one takes the 10% of capital costs we are committed to providing, that gives one an idea of how much it costs to run this area.
If we take it that a centre costs even €3 million, then we are talking about a cost of €300,000 to the State. If we start going above that to €400,000 or €500,000 then we are into a very serious situation which is not sustainable. We must be quite radical in our reappraisal of the position as it stands because we are leading people up the garden path in the belief that at some stage they are going to get this €300,000, €400,000 or €500,000. Even if the economic climate had not changed that would not happen.
There is a downside even if the money was available. My recollection where arts activity is concerned, particularly in rural Ireland over the years, was that there was a huge voluntary input. I am not just talking about the actual participants on a stage but about the people who collected the tickets, stood at the door and so on. There was that whole volunteer aspect, and because funding became available and no great psychology was used to keep the volunteers on board, they by and large moved away. Whether through FÁS or other funding, they tended to disappear and left it all to those being remunerated. We must revisit that, and I strongly recommend that the Arts Council take the lead in this regard and that we again encourage people to provide volunteer activity.
There is not a person sitting around this table who does not have experience of what I am saying. If we do not alert these centres to that possibility, I have a feeling they will go to the wall, the volunteers get burned out and the centres eventually be closed. Thus, we should start putting down markers to reactivate the volunteer spirit, and the witnesses might comment on that.
I know the rationale for what I shall address next, but I find it difficult to understand. We tend to reward failure rather than success. If one is doing well as a result of good management and getting X amount of money, one suffers as a result. If, however, one does not care how many come to one's show or what effort one makes to promote the show or maintain the standard, one will get money. That is wrong. It has been one of the cornerstones of funding in the past. Apart from the economic climate, it is important that we reward success in the future. We have not done any favours to those who - I do not say this is a derogatory sense - are failing because they have the security of funding, or who in the past have known that the tab would be picked up. We have not done their futures any favours either, and that must be revisited.
I have a final point in regard to the traditional arts. I saw an advertisement recently which cheered me up. It advertised grants from the Arts Council for small festivals, and for the first time ever I saw in brackets the words, "including traditional music festivals". Well done to the Arts Council. I am glad to see that because it is a good sign. The last thing in the world we should have from any sector is a row. The Arts Council is ours and we should be in partnership with it and working together.
If we ended up writing letters to The Irish Times or going on “Rattlebag” to have a go at each other, we had to do so in the context of the debate because we were working towards an Arts Act, but the provisions of the 2003 Act are in operation and we must be open minded, generous and say that there is a new awakening. If we decide to just do as we have done and that the new Arts Act, new Arts Council and new leadership means nothing, all of that debate will be diffused very quickly and no good will come of it.
We all know about the healthy state of the traditional arts, the thousands who are involved, their international impact, their importance within a community and the importance of the traditional arts in so far as a sense of place is concerned. We have got over that particular hurdle, and we will all say mea culpa if we hurt anybody in the process because that was never intended, it was just an invigorating debate. I am hoping we are leading now into a new era, that we will be open minded and will talk to the traditional sector in the same way as any other.
Much of what I intended saying has been said, but it is rather striking that a cut of less than €4 million in 2002 in the Arts Council's funding resulted in 1,000 people losing employment. I take it that does not mean full time employment and that different levels of employment were lost. Productions and tours were cancelled, and I have heard a good deal about that in my own constituency in regard to Spraoi, Garter Lane and Red Kettle.
The funding hoped for this year is an aspiration that I hope is fulfilled, but many of the aspirations in the early pages of the submission on the many dimensions the Arts Council will be looking at will remain pretty aspirational if the additional funding is not forthcoming. It seems from what has been presented that we are at a particularly critical time in the arts, and even to stand still requires considerable additional money in the year ahead.
As a former teacher the arts in education is automatically an area that catches my eye, and I would like some outline of what exactly is intended here. What talks have taken place, for instance, between the Arts Council and the Department of Education and Science and any other players in the education sphere?
On the traditional arts, which is specifically mentioned, I recall from the debate on the Arts Act 2003 how exactly one defines the traditional arts. I take it that the phrase, "including traditional arts", means that this general area will not be neglected in any way, but there is no stand alone definition of traditional arts that can be put forward. Traditional arts never stand still, and we have seen Riverdance, for instance, becoming an enormous international success based on a traditional medium. Traditional arts do not stand still and did not start in 1921 or 1821. It is a little disconcerting that this term is included but not clearly defined. I take it, however, that it is included to provide reassurance to a generalsector that it will not be forgotten.
The chairperson of the Arts Council made a point about minds remaining open to new ideas, with which I agree very much. In some ways we have a need for new ideas, certainly from my age group. The younger age groups have many deas which the older age groups have not caught up with, but it is a very important basic point about the arts and one that is not stated often enough.
Geographic equality in the arts has something to do with liaising with arts officers and the sort of engagement the chairperson had this morning. Could she elaborate some more on what exactly that is all about? The final issue I wish to raise is the constant criticism in Waterford of the non-funding by the Arts Council of the international festival of light opera. Will that be considered during the life of this Arts Council? Is it a policy area that will be revisited? I understand the difficulty in terms of funding because the festival is actually a competition, which is not funded by the Arts Council.
I welcome the delegation from the Arts Council, and I am particularly delighted to welcome Ms Olive Braiden, the new chairperson of that body, Mr. Jerome Hynes, the vice chairperson, and to welcome back again Ms Patricia Quinn. I extend my heartiest congratulations to Ms Braiden on her appointment. The Arts Council and the people of Ireland are very lucky that somebody of the calibre and reputation of Ms Braiden would take on such a task. Her achievements are well documented and second to none, including her time in the Rape CrisisCentre and the BCI. She has done trojan work on behalf of the people so I am delighted that somebody like here will come in to work with Patricia and everybody else on the Arts Council. It augurs well for the future of the arts.
In 2002, funding for the Arts Council peaked at €47.6 million, and I have no doubt that the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Deputy O'Donoghue, is fully committed to the arts. The facts are there to prove his commitment. In an economic climate of cutbacks, Departments depend on Exchequer returns for their funding, but there is no doubt that this Government will put the country back to where it was for the past five years, the best in the history of the State. We enjoyed rapid economic growth and financial benefits that nobody, in their wildest dreams, had ever foreseen, and we look forward to that again.
I do not intend asking any questions but just welcome the two issues hit on by the new chairperson - the economic position of the Arts Council and the importance of geographic equality in the arts. If we could achieve that it would be very ambitious and very good. We look forward to it and it is probably the ambition of the Government also that we see economic growth and geographical spread of the arts.
We are all aware of the importance of the arts and how they touch us all in our daily lives. In my constituency of Longford-Roscommon we have the Ballymahon Bog Lane theatre and the Longford Back Stage theatre. Even after listening to all the other elegant speakers, I still believe Longford is the centre of the arts in Ireland at present.
The centre of the universe. The Deputy should not sell Longford short.
It is the centre of the universe whenever there is an election, but it is the centre of the arts at present. I welcome that and the development of local arts centres and regional theatres. We are all here as one because all members of this committee is fully committed to the arts. We have seen dramatic change and know that the future will be bright. There is a great deal of arts activity out there that can benefit and lift everybody. Apart from lifting one's heart and putting one in good form, the arts also has an economic, job creating role. I wish Ms Braiden and the Arts Council well and I have no doubt that when a report is issued at the end of the year we will be saying, "Well done; we are very lucky with the Arts Council we have".
On that optimistic note we go to Deputy Fiona O'Malley.
A Deputy
Unfortunately I am slightly handicapped because I am not from Kerry.
I join in congratulating Ms Braiden on her new position as chairperson of the Arts Council and in congratulating the new Arts Council generally. Ms. Braiden's tremendous flair and obvious ability augurs well for the council and I wish her well in the journey ahead.
Like Senator Ó Murchú, I am interested in the developmental role of the Arts Council. Having worked previously for a regional arts council in England, I am very aware that as soon as one says "no" to somebody one creates an enemy. Unfortunately, as the chairperson said, the reality is that the council has to operate within a budget. Criteria have to be followed and decisions and choices made, which means that some people stay outside of funding. I have always looked to the model of sports, which are now part of almost everybody's life, and wished that was the case for the arts. I feel strongly about the arts and they are an important part of my life. I regret that every schoolchild does not receive the same enthusiasm and early interaction developing into a love of the arts which will remain with them for years, in the way that sports do. It is very important to involve arts education in the school curriculum from an early stage. There could be a role for the local authorities in that. We need to look at sports models and how they develop audiences and participants to try to produce something similar in the arts.
Does the Arts Council see itself in the role of encouraging or priming arts groups to run as businesses in the hope that they become self-sufficient? We need to be aware of issues such as those which arose last year about the Gate Theatre. It is a very successful organisation because it runs cutting edge shows as well as crowd pleasing ones. What lessons were learnt from that experience? I imagine that the director of the Gate would be annoyed because he has done the cutting edge work, yet, as he sees it, the Arts Council wants to pull back that money. Of course, when it is dealing with a limited budget the council has to take the view that if an organisation has demonstrated an ability to raise capital or equity the council money should go to organisations which are not so financially successful.
I agree with Ms Braiden that the council is not being greedy to expect that a Government that has bought into an arts plan will want to see it through and to restore last year's funding. That is a very sensible approach and the council's temperate attitude should be rewarded. If the council does not get the amount it seeks, will it be necessary to throw out the existing plan and devise a new one? Is there any point in holding onto something when there is no delivery on the commitment given?
Does the Arts Council have any information about its work with networks because so many groups face the same problems and it is a waste of time, effort and resources to reinvent the wheel.
We are running out of pen, ink and paper.
I will be brief and will not make any demand on the stationery supplies. I join my colleagues in welcoming the delegation from the Arts Council and wishing well to the new council and Ms Quinn in their endeavours. Senator Ó Murchú will be interested to hear that last night I had the pleasure of opening an art exhibition in the Fingal Arts Centre in Rush. When I arrived there was a bodhrán class for ten year olds in progress. The average price for paintings on display was €3,000. I said in my address to the group last night that this showed what can be done when the will is there. The arts in the broadest sense can move forward together and are doing so.
This committee supports the Arts Council's efforts to increase the allocation of funding but regardless of what our figure is, we should look seriously at the fact that the Northern Ireland budget is double that of our Arts Council. This is important in the context of all the other areas of co-operation with colleagues in the North. The Chairman particularly is conscious that the other side of the Border is not a different planet and to look at the various allocations in funding for the arts raises very significant questions. Why, in the council's view, is there such a wide discrepancy?
At our last meeting we heard a very impressive presentation from the Screen Producers of Ireland about section 481 about which there is a fairly intense lobbying campaign under way. Without wishing to prolong the debate too much can the council discuss the question of opportunities that may be available through indirect funding, rather than direct funding, because our discussion so far has focused on the latter. I accept that there are large shortfalls there but we are equally aware of the difficulties. Section 481 has problems but it has also brought very significant benefits and there must be other opportunities in that area as, without distracting the council too much from its role in promoting the active arts. That is a vital area and I would be interested in the council's views on that.
I welcome the representatives of the Arts Council and wish it well in the coming years. Unlike my colleague, I would advise the council to ask for plenty of money and take what it gets. Hopefully, the council will be rewarded for coming here. It should make very clear that it would like funding although it is not here specifically for that purpose. Local sports partnerships are working very well in giving young people good access to all types of sports. Hitherto the emphasis was on Gaelic football or hurling, or even rugby, and children did not have access to other sports. The Arts Council should consider looking at local arts partnerships. It brings the different groups together regularly and they communicate, and probably have more respect for one another, and it gives children good access to the arts.
Much of the interest in sport is competitive. While there are competitions in the arts we should look at areas which the council feels are not thriving and consider can more competitions be devised and win people's interest through advertising these. It might be an easy way of highlighting the arts. Developing an interest in the arts comes very often from teachers and parents. My parents tried to encourage me to become interested in them but I was more interested in sports and so on. They were not involved in any aspect of the arts so there was no extra push and while they did not give up easily they left it to one side when I did not respond, whereas had they been involved they would have continued to push it. It is obvious but we do need to remember that and look at the children who do not get that extra push and apply it there.
It is a compliment to the witnesses that we have gone around the table with questions and there has been very little repetition. It would be wrong not to mention the role of the circus in the new Arts Council because representatives of that group appeared before the committee recently. Does the council know when its new sub-committees for traditional arts and education will be formed? Following on Deputy Glennon's point, arts funding from the Arts Council is on an all-Ireland basis in that the council funds people from Northern Ireland. Given that the budget in Northern Ireland is so much greater than it is here is this reciprocal? Finally, there was a time when every child in school got a toothbrush. Can the council envisage a time when every child will be given a tin whistle, a bodhrán, a recorder or even two dowelling rods?
Or a paintbrush.
At present they get paintbrushes in secondary school but they might never get musical instruments into their hands. If the visitors like they can take a broad brushstroke approach to the answers or if there are questions to which they do not know the answers they can come back to us again with those. I do not want this to be the one and only opportunity for us to have all our questions answered or our points made. Likewise, the visitors can give us their answers later.
Ms Braiden
Given the variety of questions, many of which we cannot answer today, we would like the opportunity to come back to the committee particularly because we are a new council and have not debated all the issues or come to conclusions on any. We have decided to look at the arts plan and see what our consensus and priorities on it are. It is an excellent plan. We will not throw it out and draw up a new one if we do not get the funding. We will see what the priorities are and decide what to do year by year because it depends on funding.
We will take a broad brush approach in answering the questions and divide them between Ms Quinn, who has the most knowledge and information, attributes which we hope to gain over time, and Mr. Hynes. He would like to deal with the issue which Senator Ó Murchú raised about volunteers, the question of how cuts in funding undermine the infrastructure, and whether we reward success or failure.
Mr. Jerome Hynes
I thank the Chairman and the committee for giving us the opportunity to address them. We look forward to other opportunities to engage with the committee on these issues as we are only now getting our feet under the table at Merrion Square and there is a large task ahead of us, which we relish. It is important, as many members have said, to note the serious impact of the cutbacks on the ground. It is one thing to manage expectations in Merrion Square but the impact on individual artists and organisations around the country has been profound. Great damage has occurred in the past 12 months to an already precarious infrastructure. This applies to the commitment and self-confidence of individuals and to the ability of organisations to survive. It has to be addressed with money which has to be properly and effectively managed and communicated by the Arts Council. We are determined to ensure that will be the case.
Our Chairman referred to the serious number of job losses. Many individuals are leaving the country and finding opportunities elsewhere. Worse again is that confidence about making a career in the arts is seriously undermined. Good people are leaving and taking other options and the effect of that will be felt in years to come and we need to be very careful about this. The real issue is that many organisations will probably survive only by calling in favours, asking people to do things for repeat fees or lower fees and by bringing more volunteers into the operation. This cannot happen year on year. If we face another year like 2003 there will be a serious crisis in the arts and at that point it will be too late - for many individuals and organisations - for us to turn around and correct. The arts plan is a very good one but it acknowledges basic under funding of the arts as a key factor. It is not a matter of additional riches to allow us go forward but of correcting serious under funding of the artists and arts organisations. We must acknowledge and address that in the future.
There are many issues which I would like to deal but I will focus on a few. I am committed to the involvement of volunteers. Arts organisations around the country involve many volunteers regularly and this is a way of creating access. The organisation for which I work, the Wexford Festival Opera, which opens tomorrow, involves 350 volunteers. That is very important financially and for the ethos of theatre companies, galleries and festivals. We need to work hard on this and possibly in the council we need to formally develop volunteerism within the sector.
We also need to address the issue of rewarding success. It was a catch cry that one was better arriving at the Arts Council with a bank manager on one's shoulder than with a good artistic idea. That has changed and will continue to change. Artistic success should be rewarded, not only for established organisations but those that are growing, individuals, small galleries and theatre companies who are at that early stage when it is too early to see their potential. It is the council's job to get in there and to give them the self-confidence and the courage to move forward. This applies not just to funding but to moral support too, through networking which has been mentioned today as something we need to address.
Finally, Deputy O'Malley referred to the arts as a business. I regard myself as a business person who happens to work in the arts. We have got to run the arts as a business. The Chairman has referred to the limitations in the council's budget. The limitations apply equally to each of the individual arts organisations. There are many good artistic ideas which we have had to turn down in the past 12 months. If we allow this to continue we will stifle creativity and most importantly, we will not be facilitating the ability and willingness to take risks. The council has a duty to address that.
Ms Patricia Quinn
I would like to take this opportunity to say that the change in the Arts Council is not reflected only around the board of the council members. The Arts Council as an executive structure has also undergone a great deal of change which is perhaps not so commented on. As an organisation it has gone through a transformation such that fewer than 10% of staff today are in the jobs they held 12 months ago. People have joined us from running arts organisations or working in those organisations or as artists and there is great enthusiasm and fresh blood in the council. It is one of the strengths of the Arts Council that its board and staff are drawn from the sector and work in harness together. I hope that gives an earnest of the transformation in communication and style about which our chairman has spoken today. There has been a profound change in the organisation of the Arts Council, the evidence of which will be visible soon.
I have to agree with Deputy Deenihan that any cuts made by the Arts Council would have had a very damaging effect on any individual sector and I could add to his list. The cuts were serious because as Mr. Hynes and others have said, the funding the Arts Council provides to the sector is only part of the money that people use. Any money that the council gives an arts organisation is the lever for more money to come in from earnings, and it is absolutely correct to say, as Deputy O'Malley did, that it is the business acumen of these organisations that generates that additional funding. The size of that footprint is critical because €1 from the council may generate €3, €4 or €5 but if it is 50 cent it can generate only half that amount. The economic impact of a cut is all the more damaging because it is not just removing the value of the funding from the sector but taking out the value of the other earnings as well. That is why the withdrawal of funding from publishing and dance had such a swingeing effect. Many of those organisations may still be trading today but they are merely staying alive and not in any sense achieving their artistic potential.
I welcome Deputy O'Shea's comments on the damage of the reduction in funding following several years of more or less standstill funding because what has not been sufficiently commented on is that the cut in funding came on top of two years when funding hardly grew and did not even keep pace with inflation. That is the experience within the sector and it is perhaps not well enough recognised outside that people have already been calling in the favours that Mr. Hynes mentioned. We have passed the point of elasticity in terms of the capacity of organisations to survive in the funding circumstances that we have been able to provide.
Several members commented on the need to take a fresh look at venues and that is consistent with what we have been hearing around the country from county managers, local arts officers, and people running the venues. It is necessary to look again at how these venues for the arts are funded on an ongoing basis. Everyone knows that it is not enough simply to put capital into a building. Our chairperson has commented quite rightly on the need for funding to be there to sustain the operation of the venues, and perhaps even more importantly, to be there for the arts productions to tour into these venues. There needs to be a sustainable mix of local and touring product. Without that, these wonderful new venues will never achieve their full potential and some very critical issues will confront us immediately on that front.
May I take the opportunity to rebut very firmly Senator Ó Murchú's suggestion that the Arts Council supports only the activities it funds? That is completely erroneous. I will not quote the arts plan but the Arts Council has made a very earnest and sincere declaration of its position on voluntary arts participation in a range of ways. That is expressed in the form of grants for all of the umbrella organisations that support voluntary and amateur arts around the country. More importantly, as Mr. Hynes has mentioned, the council is very alert to the role of voluntary participation in the sustainability of the arts. This is why it is not enough to describe an arts organisation as a business. It is much more than that as anyone who has encountered one is aware. The mixture of voluntary participation with others on the board of arts organisations is very important. This is also a good opportunity to signal that we estimate that there are 3,000 or 4,000 active members of boards of arts organisations seriously giving their time to help these organisations to be effective. In other words, there is a hidden economy which is not measurable by the raw figures that we are throwing around today. We are all conscious of that in terms of the strength of our civil society.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate the arts in Longford, not just the Backstage Theatre but the emergence of thriving activities within local areas is to be celebrated. The Arts Council nurtured the Shawbrook Ballet Theatre in Longford, from a time when it was nothing but promise and there was no success to celebrate. It was established by a farmer and his wife who had a passionate interest in dance and developed their farm buildings into the most remarkable centre for dance. One of the big successes of the recent Dublin Theatre Festival was a testimony to their effort in helping to workshop and develop a remarkable new work which I hope will travel throughout the world, out of Longford. It is important to celebrate the very distinct variety and character of the arts within each county in Ireland.
Perhaps I could use that issue of local arts development to comment on the Arts Council's developmental role. The Arts Council initially articulated the idea of functioning as a developmental agency in the context of local arts. The committee may recall in the debates about the arts legislation last year the difference between the Arts Act 1973. The conditions that exist today are largely based on the transformation in local arts provision in which the Arts Council can take some pride as having been the stimulus for that local arts development. My predecessor, Adrian Munnelly, was one of the important figures in that initiative. He worked with a succession of councils in putting funding from the even smaller budget of the Arts Council in those days, into what was then a very difficult and unpromising line of expenditure, to work with local authorities building up a formidable network of individuals in each county. That role is growing into a much richer encounter between the Arts Council and local authorities. The council gives local authorities perhaps €2.5 million a year but that funding now generates something that is immeasurable in the sense that it can be counted in terms of perhaps €10 million, €11 million or €12 million in expenditure by local authorities on the arts. It is far greater in terms of the impact of those people working in their communities to build supports for the arts and to facilitate development in the arts. I could give many examples of that.
The other element of the Arts Council's developmental role, which has also been growing with the work of people like Martin Drury and his successors as education officers in the council, is to be a support agency for arts organisations in working with and through education authorities. We are actively developing arts partnerships in education with the Department of Education and Science. A former arts officer from Wexford, Lorraine Comer, who was originally a primary school teacher and worked especially with local children's choirs and five primary schools, has joiined the Arts Council. She will spend several years building a better relationship with the Department of Education and Science to develop a practical model for promoting best practice in arts work in schools and for local education centres, local arts organisations and local county officers to work in project teams. We recently published a directory of best practice in the current year to act as a stimulus to that. I hope there will be more to report on about that early next year.
I welcome Mr. Hynes and Ms Quinn and thank them for being so frank and honest with us. When there is a crisis or a problem it is important that we all face it together. I congratulate the Arts Council on its newsletters. I receive these on the Internet which is an excellent service because it gives us access to what is going on at the Arts Council. If that is a new idea I welcome it and thank the council for it.
The Arts Council has secured extra staffing and I understand it has permission to recruit 13 extra staff. How will that impinge on the overall budget? Will the council require more money to pay the staff to keep programmes going?
This committee will make a case for the Arts Council. The arts plan is part of the programme of Government. In 2004, the council was to receive €61.8 millions yet with the amount of applications the council would need €60 million. If the council was getting the budget, it would meet their requirement. Next year is an important year for the council with the centenary year for the Abbey Theatre and Bloomsday and all of this coincides with our EU presidency term. There is a compelling case for giving the council adequate funding for next year. This committee will certainly be making it. Will the council inform us how staffing is putting pressure on the budget?
If I could revisit theamateur and professional difference again, is there a definition for those two headings? Is there a specific definition for amateur or is this a reference to voluntary work?
Ms Quinn
The chair mentioned the Northern Ireland Arts Council whose budget is considerably smaller than ours due to population size. Our staff numbers are exactly the same size of the Northern Ireland Arts Council, as a result of the increase of 45 permanent staff members we were allowed last year. It does have an impact on our budget of around €300,000 this year. It will bring us, in terms of staff costs, only to 4.5% of our budget. In addition, we have administrative expenses that are associated with our premises, because we are unusual for a semi-State body in that we have to rent and maintain our own premises. We, therefore, carry about 4.5% of our staff costs. That is a marginal increase over last year in terms of the additional cost to us of those new posts. However, 4.5% is a respectable cost of administering a budget of the scale and complexity that we have compared with other bodies like ours.
Does the Arts Council need extra funding to cover this?
Ms Quinn
It is certainly part of the case that we have made in our submission.
In terms of the newsletter, I am grateful for the compliment, but we will never assume that electronic communications are sufficient. As Mr. Hynes said, there are ways that we need to look afresh at our communications. We need to do this in a much deeper way in listening to what the sector is saying to us and reflecting that in the way we behave.
The committee appreciates meeting the Arts Council quickly and early in its tenure. While we accept the independence of the Arts Council and any decisions it makes, we would like the council to see us as pushing the same wheel and aspiring to the same goals.
We want to see the arts becoming centre stage. I am convinced that if every child, as Deputy Fiona O'Malley said, was exposed to the arts up until six years of age, we would be dealing with less problems in the schools for classroom assistants and remedial support. At a mental health conference recently I heard of the links between the arts and overcoming and surviving depression and psychiatric illnesses. The cost benefit analysis can be done in the arts. It should not only be a business but be beyond that. If we sell that message collectively, we will be doing each other a favour.
I thank the council for coming before the committee today. We ask more questions than there ever can be answers to, but we look forward to seeing the results.
The joint committee adjourned at 5.45 p.m.sine die.