Poet blasts McCarthy report "fucking arrogance" on arts

Poet, author and Arts broadcaster Theo Dorgan launched a scathing attack on the authors of the recent McCarthy Report, aka An Bord Snip, at the Music Show, which took place at the RDS over the weekend. Dorgan was participating on a panel The Arts Under Attack, which also featured the Chairman of the Irish Film Board, James Morris, musician and screenwriter Barry Devlin and singer and performer Camille O'Sullivan.
"The Arts are not even being attacked by smart people," Dorgan said, "but by people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. In one of the briefing documents to the recent McCarthy Report, one note from a civil servant suggested that resources for the arts should be restricted to Dublin and that we should be charged to go into the National Gallery.
"So they want to charge us into a gallery that we've paid for, to see the paintings that we've bought?" he asked. "And all those festivals around the country, the Galway Arts Festival, the Wexford Opera Festival, all of them would have to go? A 12-year-old retarded child on speed wouldn't come up with this nonsense.The fucking arrogance of them!
"It's time we knew who these anonymous people are," he added, "the people who want your sons and daughters to stop playing music and writing books and poems."
Dorgan's polemic drew applause and cheers from an enthralled audience.
Irish musician Camille O'Sullivan echoed Dorgan''s views when she said, "Take the money away from the Arts and you reduce Art to a hobby that can only function at an amateur level."