In response to the public consultation on the NI Draft Budget 2015-16, Community Arts Partnership wish to register our concerns regarding the impact that further cuts to the Arts will have, not only on the arts in general, but on community arts in particular.
We believe the Arts matter. The Arts matter to individuals, to communities, to families, to employers and to young and old, to people with and without disability, to people who have been educated to a high level and to those who have struggled in schools and college and to others who feel themselves on the margins of this society. The Arts and the Creative Industries, generate significant levels of employment and act as ambassadors nationally and internationally for the progress that we have made here.
The world can see and hear the impact of the Arts from the celebrated successes like Game of Thrones and The Fall, or internationally respected poets like the late Seamus Heaney and Sinead Morrissey, or supremely talented musicians like Van Morrison or Cara Dillon. These successes promote Northern Ireland as a positive, forward-looking country where creative industries flourish.
