Madam, - I note that the appointment of a new Arts Council has not resulted in any kind of moratorium on attacks on the membership.
Dean Robert McCarthy (August 15th) was justifiably rueful that Kilkenny Arts Festival was unhappy with its allocation of €300,000 from the Arts Council. He pointed out that when he was involved in the festival some years ago, there was no Arts Council funding for the event.
But is the council thanked? No. John A. Ruddock of the Limerick Music Association (August 20th) complains that the sum granted to Kilkenny in 2003 is more than the total his association has received in 36 years.
On the day of the appointment of the new Arts Council, Michael Colgan, director of the Gate Theatre, said on the News At One on RTE1 that the Gate should (naturally) receive far more than it does from the Arts Council. But, he also said, it was disgraceful that the Arts Council had cut funding to other organisations.
Now I'm rotten at maths. But speaking personally, even I know that if any organisation receives more money, others must receive less. The Arts Council does not store up the funding received from the taxpayer in some Aladdin's Cave in order to gloat over it. It spends every available cent.
And now it's being criticised for making funds available? Having served from 1998 to the present, I have just been honoured by being re-nominated by the Minister to serve art and artists as a member of the new Arts Council. And I'm beginning to wonder if I was nuts to accept.
Or is there going to be some level of fairness and logic applied to comment on the Arts Council this time round? - Yours, etc.,
EMER O'KELLY, Dublin 8.