Priorities for funding all wrong

SOMETHING that comes up again and again is how one arm of the State can do its business without having any regard to other arms.

Indeed, we have cases where the Government acts in a completely contradictory fashion. Examples abound.

This year, there’s a great deal of hype about the Gathering, which aims to attract hundreds of thousands of exiles and people of Irish extraction, giving a much-needed boost to tourism.

Fáilte Ireland has a €7m budget to lure the diaspora to villages, towns, and cities, and we’re all urged to invite relatives from overseas to visit us, which seems a brilliant idea until we look at other Government actions.

Tourism surveys consistently show that the main reasons visitors come to Ireland are the friendliness of the people and the scenery/landscape, with cultural and heritage attractions also figuring highly.

Yet despite the huge focus on tourism, that which draws people here is being starved of essential support and is, in fact, deteriorating before our eyes. For the first time since 1997, the Heritage Council will not be in a position to provide grant support to local communities to look after their heritage across Ireland in 2013.

Last year, despite cutbacks of 60% per cent, the council managed to invest €1.4m in more than 270 projects. Local communities, individuals and small enterprises benefited. But, with a budget of just under €4.5m, down from €6.4m last year, the council will not be able to give grants this year.

While individual grants may have been small, they supported the quality of landscapes, museums, towns, and villages, and elements of our heritage that made the tourist experience unique and, at the same time, improved local people’s quality of life.

In recent years, for instance, projects such as the Youghal town wall conservation, in Co Cork, Russborough House in Co Wicklow, and Talbot’s Tower in Kilkenny, benefited from the council’s support. With a 70% cut in the council’s budget since 2008, however, what can be expected now?

Funding for the environment, arts, and heritage has taken disproportionate and savage cuts. And the pity is that is happening at a time when there is a positive shift in people’s attitudes to safeguarding the landscape, which probably comes from a belated realisation of damage done during the so-called Celtic Tiger era.

Visitors might come to view the scenery, but they must surely squirm at the sight of ghost estates and other monstrosities on the landscape.