A campaign to increase arts funding in Northern Ireland has “emphatically succeeded in bringing a coherent and compelling case for the arts to the forefront of political awareness”, according to Arts Council Northern Ireland (ACNI), although it says that “the settlement remains short of our assessment of need for the arts sector”.
A funding uplift of £7.6m from the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure over the next three years follows a vociferous campaign by arts organisations, focussing on the aspiration for a “per capita funding figure” matching other UK nations. ACNI says this would require “an extra £26m over the next three years”, and that the settlement will fail to compensate for an estimated loss of £4.6m in Lottery money to the Olympics. An additional increase of £2m from the Northern Ireland Budget 2008–2011 will also go to ACNI. Peter Robinson, Minister for Finance, said that the NI Executive “recognises the importance of the sector” and paid tribute to the campaign for its “organised effort… to highlight its concerns”. ACNI says the agreement “signals a turning point in attitudes to arts funding”, but will look in the longer term to “funding which fairly reflects the value of our arts”.