Arts Council refusal makes no sense

I WAS heartened to see Maureen Gallagher’s letter (Irish Examiner, January 18) in support of the Western Writers’ Centre in Galway, following the refusal of the Arts Council, for the sixth time, to give the centre funding.

I am the centre's manager. In spite of the many literary initiatives the centre has come up with, the Arts Council seems determined not to fund us.

The council for some time has been reluctant officially to recognise independent arts projects, preferring to pump funding into organisations under whose roof the council believes all arts disciplines can be housed.