Slash and burn for Gaeltacht and sports departments

YOU could be forgiven for calling it an Bord Snip & Tuck if the slash and burn plans for Sports, Arts & Tourism and Community, Rural & Gaeltacht Affairs are anything to go by.

Simply put, both departments face the axe under proposed recommendations by An Bord Snip Nua.

The board’s report says the Department of Community, Rural & Gaeltacht Affairs should be closed down as its functions overlap with other departments or are or a “lower priority” to the public purse.

It claims subsuming the department’s functions into other departments and cutting 196 staff will save €151m annually.

The report states €67m could be saved through tackling the department’s “community” brief. It proposes to reduce funds to community and voluntary supports and programmes, saving €64m. Another €1.4m could be saved by discontinuing the RAPID scheme – which targets 45 of the most disadvantaged areas in the country.

The report sets out how the department’s work could be split between others, subsuming community and the islands into the Department of the Environment and drugs into the Department of Health and Children. Additionally, the report says cuts to Gaeltacht schemes would save €20.8m – as would slashing investment to the islands. Other cuts which are recommended similarly target community programmes.

An Bord Snip also calls for a critical examination of the retention of the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism.

It proposes that 170 jobs be shed, with a saving of €104.8m next year and €85.5m a year thereafter. The board recommends a cut in funding for:

* Tourism marketing.

* Sports (including elimination of spending on Sports Campus Ireland).

* The Horse and Greyhound Fund.

* The Arts Council and various cultural projects.

The biggest reduction in tourism funding will be the grant to Fáilte Ireland, saving €15m a year. However, tourism interests argue cutting funding to this extent will lose money rather than save it.

John Power, chief executive, of the Irish Hotels Federation said: “We fundamentally disagree with the proposed reductions... Marketing expenditure must be viewed as an investment which the Government continually recoups multi-fold each year for the exchequer.

“Any reduction in this funding will result in a corresponding decline in industry performance and exchequer receipts.”

The board identified €21.7m in possible savings in the funding of sport. It proposed to reduce the allocation of funding to the Irish Sports Council by €17.7m from the current allocation of €52m. “The Irish Sports Council must achieve efficiencies by prioritising programmes,” the report said.