It’s time to close the book on archaic and elitist Aosdána

IT STRUCK a sensitive nerve when the poet WJ Mc Cormack, aka Hugh Maxton, this week defended Aosdána’s annual funding of €2.7 million by mentioning that Fair City cost €11 million. This fact was met, according to an RTÉ report, with laughter from the floor of Aosdána’s general assembly meeting at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham.

It’s not funny. There is nothing funny about RTÉ’s funding for the long-running TV soap which is said to generate in the region of €7 million in revenue for RTÉ and employs 250 people.

Employs, you understand. There is nothing laughable about creating jobs in the arts. Nor is there anything laughable about creating a 25-year-old series with storylines attracting regular audiences of half a million viewers. Thousands of writers try to do just that every year. Very few succeed and anyone who does has skill and imagination. Ask Clare Dowling who has written for Fair City and whose novels are international bestsellers or Liz Nugent who has also written for Fair City and whose first novel, Unravelling Oliver, has just been published by Penguin.