Christmas has arrived early for the arts sector. The €16.4 million bonanza shared out among the big national cultural institutions and smaller centres and venues throughout the country comes on top of the significantly increased funding that the Minister, John O'Donoghue, secured for the arts in the last budget. In all, funding to the Arts Council has increased by almost 70 per cent since Mr O'Donoghue took office.
There can be no gainsaying the fact that the Minister has been good to, and for, the arts - and the cynic might suspect that he will be even more generous in the run-up to the election. His reputation stands high in the arts community, and deservedly so. It is therefore a pity that out of the 20 smaller projects which received grants from his department, eight were in the Minister's home county, giving rise to accusations of political opportunism.
That does seem disproportionate. Opposition politicians have already questioned the motives for what Fine Gael's Richard Bruton called the "particular attention to his own part of the country". There are many other arts venues around the rest of the country which would covet such assistance and they, no doubt, will be paying "particular attention" to how the extra €7.5 million which this week was given to the Arts Council will be disbursed.
If there is one area where this extra funding urgently needs to be directed it is towards providing our theatre and dance companies and artists with the means of bringing their productions and exhibitions to audiences beyond Dublin and other major centres. There is now, right across the country, a wide network of arts centres with the best of facilities, where new audiences for the arts can be nurtured. This provision of new centres has been an imaginative development, but they are of little real benefit if they cannot afford to actually put work on the stage and in the exhibition spaces. Financial support for regional touring is urgently required.
The success of Irish culture on the international scene continues - Druid Theatre Company garnered further acclaim in America for its cycle of Synge plays. Rough Magic theatre company took its highly inventive Improbable Frequency to Edinburgh recently where it dazzled the critics and this week Cois Céim dance company won a prestigious award, also at the Edinburgh Festival. All of this success has been helped by what in the future will be one of Mr O'Donoghue's far-reaching achievements: the setting up and financing of Culture Ireland. But before Irish theatre travels abroad, surely it should be available to a wider audience in the country of its origin.