Ms Orlaith McBride:

I am the director of the Arts Council and I am accompanied by the chair of the Arts Council, Sheila Pratschke. I want to thank the committee for inviting us here today to discuss the current model of production, presenting and co-presenting at the Abbey Theatre. I will outline the work of the Arts Council, our relationship with the Abbey Theatre and how we work to develop theatre and all of the arts in Ireland.

The Arts Council’s role is to support the development of the arts. We do this through a range of grants and awards towards the production and creation of artistic work by supporting organisations, supporting individual artists and working in partnership with other agencies to develop the arts. The Arts Council has committed in its strategy "Making Great Art Work" to ensuring that artists are supported to make excellent work, which is enjoyed and valued. We work across all of our funding relationships and programmes to achieve this goal. In 2019 the Arts Council's overall budget is €75 million across a range of art forms, areas of arts practice and supports for individual artists, as well as partnerships and development initiatives.

The Arts Council directly funds the Abbey Theatre, recognising its national cultural institution status, as well as the Abbey's distinctive position as a building-based national theatre. Under the 2005 memorandum and articles of association of the Abbey Theatre, the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht directly appoints the chair and three directors of the Abbey Theatre. This process is now managed via the Public Appointments Service process, albeit the Abbey is not a State body. The Arts Council also has appointing authority by participating in a selection committee that appoints three further directors. This selection committee comprises the chair of the Arts Council, the chair of the Abbey Theatre and an independent theatre practitioner. Additionally, there are staff appointees to the board of directors. The board of the Abbey Theatre is responsible for the governance and management of the organisation, including the artistic, strategic and financial aspects of the company. The Arts Council provides public funding to enable the organisation to carry out its work. The Abbey is audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

In 2013 the Arts Council commissioned Bonnar Keenlyside to undertake an independent evaluation and analysis of the Abbey Theatre. The purpose of the review was to examine the business model of the Abbey Theatre in 2013 with the aim of identifying how available public funding might secure the best outcomes for the Abbey, the theatre community and the public. The review also considered how the Abbey Theatre could deliver its mission in a way that was more efficient and effective, and whether resources might be deployed to deliver more in terms of artistic and programming outputs. Following receipt of the report in April 2014, the Arts Council and the Abbey formed a working group which met from May 2014 to work through many of the proposals within that report. Specifically, there was a focus on the following: the operating model and the use of the Peacock Theatre as the development engine of the Abbey Theatre; increased production of new work prioritising Irish writing and Irish plays about Ireland, both commissioned and those by visiting companies; increased engagement and touring; legacy and leadership with talks and discourse being led by the Abbey; restructuring of the budgeting of the company’s finances; restructuring of the staffing models for productions to increase in-house capacity; and a new system for monitoring and evaluation.

The working group comprised the following make-up: from the Arts Council, the chair and members of the council, the director and other senior staff; and from the Abbey, the chair and two board members, the director and other senior staff.

Although the working group was established to oversee and review implementation of the findings and proposals made in the Bonnar Keenlyside report which were largely addressed under the direction of the previous director, it continued to meet on an ad hoc basis on the engagement of the current artistic team, particularly in the context of the most recent bid for three-year funding.

The Arts Council has provided three-year funding for the Abbey Theatre on three occasions: for the periods 2006 to 2008, 2011 to 2013 and 2014 to 2016. Funding over a three-year period affords the Abbey Theatre and many other organisations a realistic timeframe within which to plan and implement changes and has proved successful on a number of levels. It provides security of income which assists in forward planning, both artistically and financially. As the periods 2011 to 2013 and 2014 to 2016, in particular, were marked by reduced support from the Arts Council due to the economic downturn and its impact on Government funding, this forward funding facility became ever more important. In 2015 a three-year funding agreement was extended by one year to include 2017. It had been sought to assist in the smooth transition to the current leadership team within the Abbey Theatre.

In 2017 the Arts Council entered into discussions with the Abbey Theatre on a new three-year funding agreement. At the time the Abbey Theatre was also developing a new artistic vision, mission and programme. In February 2017 the Arts Council delayed agreeing to a three-year funding envelope as it required a more comprehensive and detailed application from the Abbey Theatre. As a result, the council only made a one-year funding commitment of €7 million to the Abbey Theatre for the period September 2017 to September 2018, including €200,000 towards the cost of touring, and sought further information and details of its artistic vision and strategy, overall programme and models of production and presentation before it would make an offer for subsequent years.

In October 2018 the Arts Council made a further offer of funding to the Abbey Theatre for 2019 and 2020, with a series of conditions attached. The conditions focused specifically on the Abbey Theatre providing clarity on the nature of the production and presenting models being programmed, the impact on quality employment opportunities for actors and creatives, in particular, through an increased output of Abbey Theatre own productions, and the level of remuneration across all models of production at the theatre. The council agreed to withhold €300,000 of the funding proposed for 2019 until these areas were addressed. It met the board and executive of the Abbey Theatre in November and December 2018, with a further meeting to take place following the plenary meeting of the council in February 2019.

The previous model at the Abbey Theatre saw six equally budgeted productions and one international visiting production, coupled with a fluctuating number of Peacock shows. Increased programming at the Peacock occurred latterly and was dependent on funds being generated from a box office surplus in the Abbey Theatre. The new model of production structure is varied. There are fewer of the Abbey Theatre's own productions, but a high number of national and international co-productions and presentations afford the programme a much increased output. Presentations and co-productions aim to foster genuine and ongoing relationships between individual theatre artists, independent theatre companies, festivals and the national theatre. They provide audiences with the opportunity to see a greater variety of work on the Abbey Theatre stages.

The role of the national theatre is to be a leader in presenting and producing work that inspires and engages, as well as supporting the theatre community and sustaining the sector with exemplary employment opportunities. The responsibility for the artistic and strategic direction of the Abbey Theatre rests with its board. The Arts Council cannot and does not wish to dictate the artistic programme of the Abbey Theatre. However, it does, through its funding relationship and art form policies, attend to overarching concerns such as the fair remuneration of artists, quality employment opportunities for actors and creatives, as well as the balance between the Abbey Theatre's own productions and other independent productions, regardless of whether they are funded by the Arts Council. The current model, as evidenced by the recent letter from theatre practitioners to the Minister, as well as the Arts Council's articulated concerns, two years into its realisation, is impacting on the broader theatre ecology, with unintended consequences. A review of the impact of this model, as well as a re-balancing, is now required. The Arts Council continues to work with the Abbey Theatre and the theatre sector to ensure the very best outcomes can be achieved for practitioners and audiences.