Colm Tobin on Morning Ireland

Anyone else hear Colm Tobin on Morning Ireland this morning talking about the opposition of the Arts 'community' to any budget cuts. Thought he sounded a bit precious and when he mentioned Fair City I thought he was joking. He futher challanged the interviewer to name a Austrian writer - the point being that everyone in Europe can name an Irish writer but they cannot do the same for other European writers.

I can remember an Austrian "writer" who played a major part in world affairs during the 30's and 40's.

johnd said:

Anyone else hear Colm Tobin on Morning Ireland this morning talking about the opposition of the Arts 'community' to any budget cuts.

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Yes

Self-serving waffle. Neil Jordan was on TV the other day making the same argument and making the same points to support it. "The banks have let us down, the State has let us down, the Church has let us down .. has Marian Keyes let us down, has Maeve Binchy let us down"

At the end, when he (Toibin) thought he was 'off-mike' he laughed with Aine Lawlor and admitted there are well-known Austrian writers and that he was just trying to bluff the interviewer.

Pity. I love his books anyway.

i agreed with what he was saying about the importance of our arts culture, however as those currently availaing of the tax concessions need to earn greater than 250k they cant be too badly off not to be able to take a further tax hit.

These artiests think that they are too precious to pay tax.