First of all we want to say well done. We achieved a lot this year.
The Department changed from Tourism, Culture and Sport in 2010, to Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht this year. This means straight year-on-year comparisons to the Department are not straightforward.
National arts funding will be down in 2012. The impact on individual artists and organisations won’t be known until next year when the Arts Council, Film Board, Culture etc. announce their decisons. We won’t know how much local authority arts funding is cut by until early next year.On the positive side, it looks like Minister Jimmy Deenihan made a good case and things are not as bad as feared.
Here’s the initial news we have about the Budget and the arts:
Gross funding for the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht
This will be €266.997m in 2012 with an allocation for current expenditure of €223.997m and a capital allocation of €43m. A further €8.558m (€7.558m in current funding and €1m in capital funding) is provided through the National Gallery.
Funding for Arts Culture & Film
In his Dail speech this evening, Minister Deenihan said “The key focus for the arts and culture sector is to protect jobs and stimulate creativity right across the country. With this in mind, some €129.552m, or 49% of my Department’s resources, is being allocated in 2012 to Arts, Culture and Film programme area. This will hugely, complement the significant investment in arts infrastructure in recent years. My priority now is to ensure that resources are made available to support the operation of those facilities.”
Arts Capital Funding
Was €32 million. In 2012 it will be €21 million – a cut of 34%. The Irish Film board gets the bulk of this money as their funding is classed as ‘capital investment’ rather than current. In 2012 they will get 13.2 million of the arts capital budget of €21 million.
Arts Current Funding
Was €124.023 million. (This includes all arts budget lines including the National Gallery). In 2012 it is down to €117.035 million – a cut of 6%.
Arts Council funding
Will be EUR 63.1m in 2012 as opposed to EUR65.16 in 2011 so a cut of 3%. This is a much better result than feared. In his speech tonight, Minister Deenihan said “my intention is to facilitate the Council to maintain its support to over 50 venues, approximately 200 festivals and 400 arts organisations. In this way, the Council will support employment in communities across the country, both directly through funding artists and organisations and indirectly in the tourism sector and the wider economy.”
Irish Film Board
As noted above capital funding is being scaled back. However, an increase of 4% on the current side will bring Irish Film Board current funding from EUR2.43 in 2011 to EUR2.54 in 2012. Interestingly, Minister Deenihan pointed out in his speech “It is important to remember that for every €1 of IFB investment close to €10 is generated in the economy”.
At time of sending this email, figures for Culture Ireland and the National Cultural Institutions are not available. We understand that they will be on the Department’s website tomorrow and we will provide a full analysis of these by Friday morning. Other, wider, Budget changes will affect us too. For example, the rise in VAT will have an impact because so many arts organisations are not registered for VAT and cannot claim it back and changes to the costs of redundancy payments may impact too. It is worth noting that for the first time, the Department published estimates of savings that need to made in 2013 & 2014. These are indicative only but are very worrying. Arts and culture will face additional cuts of €5 million in 2013 and €7 million in 2014. Our task in 2012 is to make the case for investment in arts and culture stronger than ever.
To see the Minister’s press release in full click here