Arts funding squeezed again - Hard choices

Last Monday evening, Cork City councillors met to vote on the city’s 2017 budget. 

They faced a €1.6m gap between income and expenditure, so hard decisions had to be made.

Those old reliables — commercial rates — were increased by 1.25%. Some parking fees were increased too. Support for two of the events that allow Cork describe itself as a city of festivals was also, unfortunately, cut.

In once case, the Pulses of Tradition show at the Triskel Arts Centre, presented during the tourist season, the cut is fatal. Funding for the Christmas Glow festival was cut too.

Arts funding, nationally and locally, has suffered in recent years and that hard, unwelcome reality is to no-one’s advantage — even if the choice between, say, grand opera or public housing seems pretty cut and dried.

In an ideal world, it should be possible to be far more supportive of all the arts and spread the great richness and joy they inspire.

However, in a society that seems to imagine that water is free, realpolitik suggests we can’t have it both ways — as Cork City Council’s accountants will sadly confirm.