It really wasn't a great surprise that the rate of funding increase to the Arts Council has slowed, as attested by last week's budget Estimates. This year's increase brings the figure from £26 million to £28 million; the previous year, there had been a whopping 25 per cent increase of over five million. Increases of about two million had been the norm during Michael D. Higgins's reign as Minister for the Arts, apart from a three million leap from 1994 to 1995. With increases of this order, Higgins managed to double the Arts Council's budget during his time in office.

What is worrying about this year's funding increase slowdown is that it happens in a sort of vacuum. When Higgins commissioned the Arts Council's three-year plan, the £26 million figure which the Council reckoned was needed to fund it became a kind of golden number. It was meant to have been attained in 1997, but as all the arts world knows, Higgins was forced to ask the Arts Council to reschedule the plan to run over five years, not three, which would have meant the £26 million figure being reached for 1999. Minister de Valera made it one of the planks of her arts policy before the election that she would reach the £26 million figure by 1998, and she delivered on her promise.

This was a creditable achievement, but what the arts constituency needs to remember is that, had the £26 million figure been reached two years ago as originally planned, the £28 million figure this year would look slim indeed, particularly in the context of phenomenal economic growth. The arts are still severely under-funded in this country. In Northern Ireland, where there is less arts activity, the annual figure is £9 sterling per person; here it is £7.50. In Norway, folks, it is £60.

The Arts Council's next plan won't be ready until early next year, and so it has, at present, no published funding targets. Let's hope those targets are realistic, and more importantly, let's hope they are realised.