Like it or not, arts funding not a priority

It is incongruous that the debate on Government funding of arts should intensify just as acute hospitals’ budgets are cut — again — by tens of millions.

However, those who have committed their lives to the arts or the cultural enrichment of their community might buck at that connection and argue that they are separate issues, each with pressing merits and imperatives.

Oh that they were — we all know, in our heart of hearts, that they are not. Health services, and everything else the Government funds, and the arts are all fighting for a slice of a much smaller cake than we have been used to. This reality is widely accepted but its implications may be less so.

It does not decry, diminish or disrespect the visceral role arts and arts development play in our spiritual, aesthetic, and social formation to suggest that sometimes there are more pressing, undeniable life-or-death priorities, that there are other demands on the public purse that simply take precedence. That dynamic plays out in every aspect of life as our artists, arts organisations, cultural institutions — and their audiences — know only too well. There is a hierarchy of need and no matter how we might crave the sublime caress of a Schubert lieder we’d probably be happier knowing that reliable cardiac services are available should we need them. The challenge is, at a time of retrenchment, to balance aspirations with obligations. And to find alternative funding.

It is unlikely, though, that any new, private source of funding — if it could be found — would be as non-judgmental, as laissez-faire as this State was during our years of lunacy when so many ventures launched under the arts’ flag of convenience were slapdash, often slapstick, and undeniably second rate. This unfortunate legacy weakens the hand of those arguing for increased or even sustained arts funding today. Their silence as art centre after art centre was opened in what are essentially holiday resorts may have been politically astute but it diminished their ability to advance their core argument. The recent report that the Abbey Theatre, despite subvention of around €7m a year, as often as not failed to reach the “international” standards it set for itself also makes it easy for those who would cut funding.

Private funding of the arts has a good record in this country but there is ample scope for improvement as Arts Minister Jimmy Deenihan has suggested. This need was recognised when proposals to ban alcohol companies’ sponsorship of various events made an exception of arts projects — as if those with an interest in opera were less susceptible to alcohol abuse than sports fans.

Nevertheless, it seems that the great energy, provocation, imagination, and conscience — as well as essential sedition — we call the arts may have to turn to private sources for funding for the next while. Ideally, the State could be far more supportive than it is today but imagine the synergies if JP McManus could be convinced to sponsor ballet rather than horses and hurling, Michael O’Leary mime theatre or if, say, Denis O’Brien could be inveigled to sponsor Poetry Ireland? Rory McIlroy to bankroll Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Éireann anyone? That might not suit everyone in the arts community but it certainly would not be dull. And it would keep the show on the road until the State is better able to do what we all know it should do.