The Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism will today announce the establishment of the first special committee on the traditional arts, under the direction of the Arts Council.
One of Ireland's most respected arts administrators, Mr Jerome Hynes, has been appointed chairman.
Mr Hynes has had a successful career in arts administration, having worked first as administrator and later as general manager of the Druid Theatre in Galway in the early 1980s and as chief executive of the Wexford Opera Festival since 1988.
When Mr O'Donoghue names the four additional members of the committee in Boyle, Co Roscommon, today, two will be drawn from the Arts Council. These two are likely to reflect the polarised perspectives of those who would seek to establish separate funding mechanisms for traditional arts and those who promote the interaction of traditional arts with all other arts forms.
It is likely that these positions will be filled by Úna Ó Murchú and Philip King, who occupy opposing sides of the debate.
King is a champion of arts inclusivity and Ó Murchú is associated with the perspective of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the organisation widely perceived to support the original proposal contained in the Arts Bill 2003 to establish a permanent standing committee on the traditional arts.
The traditional arts sector has been debating in the past year whether aesthetic and financial decisions should be taken by the Arts Council itself or by a permanent standing committee with a particular expertise in the area.
One aspect on which both camps agree is that the traditional arts have suffered as a result of long-term under-funding and under-resourcing.
The two sides differ in the solution: some fear that a separate permanent committee would serve to ghettoise traditional arts, creating "a council within a council", while others believe it would enable the sector to assert its identity more effectively.
Mr O'Donoghue's decision to replace the original permanent standing committee proposed in the Arts Bill with a special committee, directed to report back to the Arts Council by September 1st 2004, is widely seen as a compromise.
The terms of reference for the committee include: an examination of the supports currently provided to the traditional arts sector by the Arts Council as well as enumeration of supports other departments, non-governmental agencies and local authorities provide to the sector; exploration of how traditional arts fit with contemporary arts (including understanding and usage of such terms as "amateur", "professional" and "voluntary"), and the development of an effective framework for assessing future funding.
Its remit is to devise a three to five-year policy framework.
