The arts community in Belfast is in crisis - with claims and counter claimsabout funding and priorities flying between the city council and artsorganisations. And on top of that, Imagine Belfast's £1 million bid to become the European Capital of Culture in 2008 failed. Dan Keenan reports

'We are a community in crisis," claims a statement by some 200 of Northern Ireland's main artists and arts organisations. "We have fought to survive years of significant under-funding and under-resourcing from the statutory organisations that are charged with supporting and nurturing the arts . . . In this context Belfast City Council's 21.5 per cent cut to the major arts organisations in this city, without notice or consultation, is too much to bear." It is signed by Brian Friel, Adrian Dunbar, Michael Longley, Tom Paulin, David Hammond and Stephen Rea - among others.

The response of some, but by no means all, in Belfast was to boycott the city council's gala arts awards ceremony at City Hall, and to mount a protest outside. Those not at the gates of City Hall were, it is claimed, fighting their corner from the inside.

Protesters then hosted their own celebration of the arts scene in a nearby hotel. It was a more modest get-together than the lavish £47,000 ceremony at which councillors and invited guests appeared, but such is the dissension among the statutory bodies, the arts community and other quangos that the ongoing political shenanigans at Stormont seem shallow and less personal by comparison.

The open hostility comes to a head as those who spearheaded the failed Capital of Culture 2008 bid vow to pick up the pieces and fight on, to increase the profile of Belfast in the arts world. The application, which is said to have cost the best part of £1 million to prepare, did not result in Belfast's placing on the shortlist. This was a major shock for the organisers of the bid, Imagine Belfast under the chairmanship of Tom Collins, who were stuck for explanations. He is still baffled that the concerted effort on Belfast's behalf was considered inferior to Oxford's, whose applicants, he perceived, did not try anything like as hard. The short-listed cities are: Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle Gateshead, Liverpool and Oxford.

Now there is talk that some sort of link-up with Cork can be worked out when the southern city rises to the challenge of European Capital of Culture in 2005. The route from Cork to Belfast via Dublin is a well-worn one, as many a touring performer or artist can confirm, but it is clear that those who worked for Imagine Belfast are more than keen for something positive to point to - other than shock, disappointment and a seven-figure bill. This highlights a sorry state for the weary arts scene in Northern Ireland: open conflict between elected representatives and the performing community; some divisions among artists themselves as to the next step; allegations of political self-interest and the hangover of failure following a high-profile bid for international status.

Incensed politicians blame the arts community for biting the hand that feeds it. Performers and directors accuse politicians of being high-handed and excluding them.

According to Collins, chairman of the Ulster Orchestra: "There is a lack of connectiveness among the arts community, Belfast City Council and others. There is a need for common purpose, but at the end of the day, all issues are financial."

It's a point endorsed by many; the artists' statement is signed by an impressive array of some 40 arts companies and many more individuals. They claim: "Per capita funding for the arts in Northern Ireland continues to lag far behind the rest of the UK and Ireland and the gap continues to grow. In the current financial year the per capita spend by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland is approximately 65 per cent that of the Arts Councils in England, Scotland and Wales." What pushed the issue over the edge was a decision by Belfast City Council's arts sub-committee in March this year to identify some £180,000 of the nearly £800,000 arts budget and direct it towards arts access programmes in working-class republican and loyalist areas.

Arts organisations claim there was poor consultation, that cutting support further constrains their ability to increase access and that reducing funding for organisations and professionals to work in all areas of Belfast was "an action of monumental disrespect". They further claim that with some four months of the financial year remaining, much of those funds have yet to be allocated.

Next year's council budgets have yet to be finalised, but the arts lobby is deeply suspicious that cuts are possible and that question marks hang over the availability of Lottery money as distributed through the North's Arts Council.

Eamon Quinn of Tinderbox theatre company underlines the mistrust which the performing community feels towards the council. "We're not getting anywhere. We feel, to a degree, that the consultation process is probably window-dressing. Consultations can go on and on and on without any result.

"We want the money that was cut to major arts organisations reinstated. We want an increase in funding to bring us into line with the levels of funding throughout the rest of the British Isles and we also want to have a really good partnership with the council. Up until two years ago, there was a good dialogue, there was a good connection between the city council and the arts organisations. Now it appears there has been a complete change in the council's attitude."

He makes a key point. "Artists and arts organisations feel that they haven't been able to penetrate the decision-making processes that affect the lives of the artists and organisations in the city - that we've all participated in consultation processes and strategies and focus groups, but we don't appear to be getting anywhere. The artistic vision for the city appears to be created by civil servants and un-elected board members, by politicians who maybe don't have a good connection with the arts. The very artists who will be delivering this vision have not been involved in the creation of that vision itself."

Alban Maginness, a member of the council arts sub-committee calls it as he sees it. The £180,000 reduction in the arts companies' allocation was a cut, and not a redirection to another arts access scheme. He admits to being something of a minority voice for saying so.

"It has been very detrimental to the arts community in Belfast. I began to smell a rat. They are doing this because they want a fund to play with, to allow community groups to apply for grants. That's what I think was behind all this; they could get their favourite community organisations to dabble in the arts. There is total unity between the DUP and Sinn Féin on this one." He will not be attending the City Hall arts awards - nor will he join the protesters outside, but says: "I have every sympathy with them".

THE sub-committee chairman, Nelson McCausland, urges his critics to look to the future and forget the current squabbles. This is an "interim year", he says. He encourages critics to look to the future: "We are now in a major consultation process to develop a new arts and cultural strategy. That process . . . had brought in all of the different arts sectors, professional, amateur and community. All those are now being filtered through into the creation of this new plan."

The core of his argument centres on what he calls the changeover from a reactive system of arts support to one of encouragement in areas seen as relatively barren of arts infrastructure. The new arts plan is due next year and in the meantime, widespread consultation is being conducted.

"We are interested in getting applications from those who have both an arts expertise and a strong root in the community. The idea is to match up community groups and arts organisations, to see why some people are not participating [in the arts] and to address it."

McCausland is keen to put Belfast City Council's contribution to the arts in perspective. "The primary responsibility lies with the Arts Council, and per head of the population, we actually give more to the arts in Belfast than most other cities."

But Heather Floyd of the Community Arts Forum (CAF), an umbrella group which supports the arts in disadvantaged areas with arts infrastructure needs, disagrees fundamentally. She claims she learned of a £3,500 reduction in the CAF allocation through the council minutes posted on the City Hall website.

"We are being consulted about the big picture long-term, but it's not filtering down to consultation about day-to-day operations and issues such as our grant, which affects the running of our organisation. And that is crucial to the arts delivery in this city short term and over the next five years."

Floyd stresses what is a widely-shared sentiment: "I think for the next city council arts plan to be successful, there needs to be a much healthier relationship between the arts sector and Belfast City Council. This is something that needs to be urgently addressed."