Several provisions of the new Arts Bill were challenged at a seminar held in the Irish Writers' Museum in Dublin yesterday.
The Fine Gael spokesman for Arts, Sports and Tourism, Mr Jimmy Deenihan, held the gathering for an invited audience of people who work within the arts.
Once the Dáil returns from its summer recess, the proposed Arts Bill 2002 will go before the House for legislation.
This will replace previous Arts Acts in 1951 and 1973, and so will likely define arts policy for several years, if not decades.
Two parts of the Bill and its accompanying explanatory memorandum roused particular, and heated, debate.
The sentence, "The plans and strategies of the (Arts) Council will be required to be compatible with Government policy on the arts," was received with unease by the audience.
The phrase prompted questions from the floor as to what, exactly, constituted "Government policy".
Delegates asked whether this would override any autonomy within the Arts Council.
The Bill proposes setting up three new standing committees on, respectively, Irish traditional arts, arts activities by local authorities, and new art and innovation.
Several members of the audience questioned what was defined by the open-ended term "Irish traditional arts", which many saw as unsatisfactory and unhelpful.
The potential merits and purposes of the three committees were also debated.
Many delegates pointed out that arts and education seemed to be an obvious but missing element of the committees' briefs.
There followed further debate about whether responsibility for education and the arts properly belonged to the Department of Education, or to the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism.
Several delegates pointed out forcefully that the Bill only concerned itself with arts administrators and arts policy, but not with creative artists themselves, without whom there would be no Arts Bill.
"Five Bills can go through in a day," Mr Deenihan said, after he had voiced his concerns that arts would now be relegated to a more minor governmental role within its newly defined Department.
"I want to keep the Arts Bill in the Dáil for weeks."
Among the 45 delegates were county arts officers and representatives from the National Gallery, the Project Arts Centre, the Sculptors' Society of Ireland, the Association of Irish Composers, Poetry Ireland, the Irish Writers' Centre, the Sirius Arts Centre, Music Network, and Ceoltas, and Traditional Music Archive.
Mr Deenihan explained to the audience that he was holding the seminar to gain feedback from the arts community on the proposed Bill, so that he could bring those considered opinions to an opposition debate.
However, Mr Deenihan qualified this, at the end of the meeting, by admitting that "the chances of changing anything at this stage is nil".
