The Arts Council has secured an unprecedented €140m in the government’s 2025 budget, but where will it be spent, asks Toner Quinn.

Recently I was asked to speak at an arts policy event in Dublin. The request came at short notice and so on the day I wrote down the thoughts that occurred to me. The first was this: in 25 years of attending round-table arts policy discussions, I always seem to be going in one direction: to Dublin. 

In the past, this didn’t seem so incongruous. Dublin was somewhere everyone could get to, and the Arts Council and many of the arts and music organisations are based there. But something has shifted over the years, and it has sped up post-pandemic: artists have been getting out of the city because it is unaffordable, and yet all of the decisions that affect their lives still take place in the capital. This leads to a disconnect.