The latest cuts to the arts budget in Northern Ireland could not have come at a worse time. You could ask, “what’s special about the arts”, when everyone all around is struggling with tightened budgets, rising living costs and the enduring economic legacy of the pandemic? In this one very important respect at least, the arts are different – we were already on our knees long before any of this started. Decades of underinvestment has left this tiny but disproportionately impactful sector particularly susceptible to even the smallest of fluctuations in our precarious funding ecology. Government investment in the arts in Northern Ireland has fallen over the past decade from £14.1m in 2011 to £9.7m in 2023. This is just £5.07 per capita. In Wales it is double that, at £10.51. The Irish government currently invests four times as much as their counterparts in the north, at £21.58. The gulf continues to widen.
And yet. In the last year alone, Northern Ireland’s arts have laid claim to an Oscar, ‘UK Theatre of the Year’, ‘Best Production’ Irish Times Theatre Award, the Feltrinelli Poetry Prize and the Turner Prize. We continue to be international leaders in developing the health and wellbeing benefits associated with participating in the arts, particularly for younger people at risk and older people with dementia. We provide the life blood to those economic drivers the creative industries, and we entertain and inspire as we create shared spaces and experiences so vital to the process of bringing Northern Ireland’s divided communities closer together.
None of this has happened by chance. It is the result of years of painstaking development, of careful and thoughtful investment of the Arts Council’s tiny budget. All of which makes these latest cuts all the more painful. It puts our work in jeopardy and increases the risk of further loss of our ‘brightest and best’ as our highly-skilled, highly-talented, highly-motivated creative workforce is forced to seek opportunity elsewhere. Government urgently needs to reverse the latest cuts and arrest the decline before it becomes terminal. It must embark on a programme of sustained reinvestment, leading at the very least to a doubling of the Arts Council’s budget and parity with Wales. It should not have to be left to the imagination to think of the extraordinary heights that Northern Ireland’s artists could reach, with the level of support demonstrated everywhere else on these islands.
LIAM HANNAWAY
Chair, Arts Council of Northern Ireland
Church and parishioners must work together
Reading the report on the shortage of priests in our churches and changes to be made is most depressing but not surprising. I do have sympathy with Bishop Donal McKeown and Fr Gary Donegan and indeed all of our priests but surely this situation has been obvious for years. Let us hope it is not to late to do something about it. Bishop McKeown has urged lay people to become more involved in assisting all clergy to fulfil their duties. I have no doubt that all lay people including women would be only to glad to assist in the many duties carried out by our priests. I have seen in most churches men, women and children helping out in different ways and that is to be commended. Parish life is so important it has to be protected and encouraged. I have no doubt the ordinary parishioner will rally to support their priests and applaud them in the work they do. In order to encourage more young men to consider becoming priests, what about the Church making the work of priests more rewarding in terms of better salaries, better conditions, more time off, just like other professions. Perhaps the time has come to consider married priests and also the ordination of women into priesthood. Fr Donegan mentioned the fact that he and all priests have to give up the notion of a wife and family, indeed a normal life, to serve God and his parishioners and of course he is right and something ought to be done to improve life as a priest. Other Christian churches have already ordained women to serve as ministers and bishops and the sky has not fallen down. Why has our Church delayed for so long on these issues? We really need to modernise to move forward. The report states that some parishes will take part this summer in pilot projects with lay people helping families prepare for funerals etc. Let us hope and pray that whatever happens Requiem Mass will always remain for our deceased families and friends. Can I wish Bishop McKeown and all those in authority in our Church every success in their endeavours.
KIERAN McCARTHY JP
Kircubbin, Co Down
SmartPass consultation
DFI is running a consultation on raising the age of eligibility for concessionary fares for the elderly. The cost of running a bus or train is the same whether it is empty or full so a few extra pensioners makes no difference. The only way to save money is to cut services. Government pays Translink for journeys made with a SmartPass. If that revenue is lost will government add an equal amount to the Translink subsidy? Of course not, that would not save money. Translink will be left to balance the books by cutting services, probably to rural areas. The department cannot say that because it is politically unacceptable. Instead we have a consultation on restricting the SmartPass which may appeal to young people who feel they are paying for the elderly to have a free ride. They would be cutting off their nose to spite their face because the result will be poorer transport options for everyone and the department will be able to say it has public support.
DERMOT McNALLY
Castlerock, Co Derry
Answer needed to question on eviction ban
I recently bumped into a Green Party canvasser and asked if they supported the scrapping of the eviction ban in Dublin or if they had adopted the position of England and Wales Greens who are standing on a manifesto of supporting an eviction ban?
It was a simple enough question but I got no answer. Perhaps the six-county Greens could answer my query.
It is worth pointing out that, with the removal of the 26-county eviction ban, it’s been reported more than 4,000 more Irish people are homeless.
M CONLON
Belfast
