In the largest campaign of its kind, the National Campaign for the Arts was marked in Kilkenny along with several other locations around the country last Friday.
A delegation of arts workers met with all the constituency TDs, Phil Hogan FG, John McGuinness FF, Bobby Aylward FF, Mary White Green, and MJ Nolan in a bid to secure their support.
Kilkenny Arts Festival artistic director Brendan Rice is co-ordinator for the Carlow/Kilkenny campaign.
He said that the feedback from the meetings was positive.
“They all have committed to the cause of maintaining arts funding in the constituency and to making representations to the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport [Mary Hanafin] and the Minister for Finance [Brian Lenihan] to ensure arts funding is protected in the next budget,” he said.
The National Campaign for the Arts has three specific aims:
To maintain current levels of funding to the statutory agencies for the arts, in particular The Arts Council, the Irish Film Board, and Culture Ireland, whose investment in the development of Irish artists generates the cultural assets that are central to the future of the arts.
To make significant new funding available to the arts and culture sector to build on its cultural tourism potential, through the creation of a dedicated cultural tourism fund.
To protect local authority arts funding and its essential role in the cultural diversity, social cohesion, economic impact, participation, and identity of communities and regions.
The arts sector in Carlow/Kilkeny is very significant both culturally and economically.
Some 1,440 people are employed full time in the arts with a further 120 employed on a part time or contract basis, while 1,261 people are on programmes or involved in projects run by arts organisations.
There are more than 120 arts organisations across both Carlow and Kilkenny with some 500,000 who attended events put on by arts organisations in the constituency.
“All of this activity has multi million euro economic benefits,” said Mr Rice. “Arts organisations in the constituency had cuts of up to 22 per cent in 2010 and this forced these organisations to scale back significantly.
“We will now see if our elected representatives are as good as their word. The implications of further cuts in arts funding will have disastrous consequences for the local area. In Carlow-Kilkenny, we estimate that at least 11 jobs will be lost in the major local arts organisations [representing 35 per cent of all staff in those organisations] and possibly more self employed artists will be forced to go on the dole. This will have a knock on effect on the services that arts organisations can provide. Funding cuts will also mean that programmes will be reduced across the board and that all outreach work would either cease or be severely curtailed.”
Vincent Dempsey, Leader of the Carlow/Kilkenny Campaign for the Arts added: “Local businesses will really feel the effects and this in turn will affect the local economy in an immediate way. A small cut in arts funding will have a disproportionate effect on the local businesses who rely on the arts to drive footfall into their businesses. Not only will this result in reduced revenue but it is likely to mean further job losses in the service industry also,” he said.
