by Peter Crawley07 April 2012
Nobody has come out of this year's Arts Council funding decisions well. In the fourth straight year of declining State subsidy for the arts, two regional theatre companies have lost recurring funding from the Arts Council completely while two others (neither based in Dublin) have incurred significant reductions and been told that their regular grants will conclude in 2013. Yet there has still been much surprise at the magnitude of cuts apportioned to various companies in the independent sector followed by renewed calls for transparency in the Council’s assessments and clearer communication of the theatre strategy underlying it.
In one superficial discrepancy the cut to the Arts Council’s budget from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaelteacht, amounted to just a 3% reduction...