This year began and ended with good news for the arts - the scrapping of the Arts Plan 2004-2006, which was highly unpopular, and yesterday's announcement of grants which provided significant increases for a range of events, organisations and activities.
A period of consultation between the Arts Council and its clients is due in the new year, out of which a new "framework" for the future of the arts in Ireland has been promised. Presumably, given the attitudes of council members to the plan they dropped, any new one will avoid the rigidities of the last prescriptive model and reflect more the views of those who make and deliver art in all its forms. What, of course, happens to be most relevant is the provision of adequate funding. That is the bottom line, but one which the Minister, John O'Donoghue, succeeded in bolstering again for the next year by raising the budget to € 61 million - a 16 per cent increase on 2004.
That the return on this public spending is very good value is not much appreciated; this is particularly reflected in the growth of creative activity outside Dublin. An indication of the vibrancy is the fact that out of the 410 grant applications this year, 77 were from first-time applicants. Positively, the council is responding to new ideas and backing what it calls "high-calibre artistic projects and once-off productions".
However, the council's announcement that next year's funding decisions would be made even later than heretofore is bad news, and bound to make life even more difficult for festivals and venues. It was bad enough that the experiment in three-year funding collapsed, without this additional uncertainty being introduced at a time of year when programming needs to be in place - and, therefore, certainties about financing. In fact, what the council should be doing is seeking some way to give a much earlier signal on funding - or even some way to implement a two-year funding cycle.
Many in the arts seemed genuinely relieved that in the wide-ranging Cabinet reshuffle in September John O'Donoghue was left to look after their interests. An area to which he may have to bring some influence in the next year is the artists' tax exemption scheme. The discontent with how the scheme is benefiting some music - and literary - millionaires is more than justified. Without diminishing its value to the majority - who genuinely depend on it - the Minister might well look at how bringing those high-earners into the tax net might provide extra resources for areas of the arts that are currently underfunded or which have no Exchequer support.