Mattie McGrath calls for fairer arts funding system
Deputy Mattie McGrath spoke about perceived inequities in arts funding, arguing the application system favours larger arts centres while denying support to single artists, dance schools and local festivals. He urged a change to the funding application process to make support more transparent and to recognise concerts, festivals and community arts groups.
Funding concerns
He said the current application process remains the same as before the pandemic and must be adapted. He argued larger arts centres receive multiple strands of funding while single artists and smaller groups struggle to access supports.
Examples cited
He named the Carmel Arts Centre, dance schools and different festival groups in Tipperary as examples of organisations and events that are being denied funding. He also said that some arts centres have "tens of millions at the arts council," which he characterised as unfair and lacking transparency.
Call to change the application system
He proposed a new application system that would take cognisance of single artists, concerts and annual festivals, and better reflect community benefit as events hope to return once the pandemic eases.
Government response noted
He acknowledged a reply from colleagues and noted that the minister is working on new schemes for live performance and for musicians, suggesting those schemes might take deputies' concerns into account.
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There's no inequity in the scheme of funding to support atlas, indeed single atlas, arts centres, groups like that, dance schools and under Catherine Martin's department. The application process is the old system like we had prior to the pandemic. I think we need to adapt that and change it obviously because the arts centre and some other bigger groups have got huge funding, sometimes from two or three different strands of funding. And groups like Carmel Arts Centre, dance schools, different festival groups in Tipperary are denied funding, as well as all the single artists that are out there who have got no supports and they're a huge benefit to the community and society. We need to change the funding application process to a new system to take a cognizance of those people and those artists and the concerts and the festivals that they run every year in the sense of a hope that we'll be out of the pandemic and can have some festivals this year. But they can't get the funding. The arts centre has got tens of millions at the arts council and it's not fair, it's not transparent and it's not an equal playing field. Thank you, Gael Margot. Thank you to reply. Thanks Deputy. I know Minister Martin is working on some new schemes at the moment, one for live performance and the other for musicians, so perhaps it's possible as part of that that she'll take into account the deputies' views.
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