Traditional music centre loses nearly €250,000

The national performance centre for Irish traditional music lost just under a quarter of a million euro in its first year of operation, it has emerged.

However, the operating loss of Glór Irish Music Centre in Ennis would have been far higher, at €556,000, without the subvention received from Clare County Council and Ennis Town Council.

In all, Glór received €317,000 last year from the two local authorities.

The project went ahead only when the then minister for arts and heritage and Clare TD, Ms Síle de Valera, allocated €5.7 million.

The director of the centre, Ms Katie Verling, said the loss of €239,000 was "more or less what was originally projected".

With prospects for this year's tourism sector looking gloomy, Ms Verling added: "It will be a challenge for us to keep the loss to the same level in 2003, that is how hard it is going to be. We are going to have to control our costs enormously this year to be able to continue to do what we are doing.

"We have to be very careful what we can and cannot put on now. Last year we just had to put on stuff to get activity into the centre, and I will now be making difficult decisions based on commerce rather than culture."

Both local authorities have committed the same level of subvention to Glór in 2003, though taking inflation into account this represents a cut in funding.

As part of the initiative to control costs, Glór's summer programme aimed at tourists is being cut from five nights to three nights per week, though it will run for a longer period than the 2002 programme.

Ms Verling said the overall budget for this summer's programme - which will run over 90 nights and starts towards the end of this month - is €200,000.

On the medium-term financial outlook for the centre, Ms Verling said: "If we are very, very lucky it will be three or four years at least before we break even, and the break even will be dependent on the summer programme becoming firmly embedded.

"These kind of ventures are not profitable ventures, they are lucky to break even and it is not achieved by placing bums on seats alone. It is achieved by sponsorship, national and local funding. You have to have a mix of different forms of money to provide the programme you want to provide."

She estimated the spin off to the local economy was €800,000.