Future of arts festival remains uncertain following meeting

THE future of a major arts festival in Ballyfermot is still uncertain after an emergency meeting with council officials last week.

The Ballyfermot Cherry Orchard Arts Festival is a festival of art, culture and fun- filled activities that takes place each July.

It brings together many community groups including youth services, community associations, Coiste Gaeilge, the Ballyfermot Heritage Group to organise cultural and arts events to celebrate the history and people of the area.

However, this year’s plans have been upset by a requirement from Dublin City Council, who are the lead agency in organizing the festival, for public liability insurance.

This is the first time in the festival’s eight-year history that insurance has been brought up by the council, according to the chairman of the Ballyfermot Cherry Orchard Festival Committee, Gerry Mc Carthy.

“All the organisations that do stuff for the festivals, they all have their own insurance, but in terms of the festival itself, we never have.” he explained.

The issue of insurance was only raised by DCC at a meeting with the festival committee on April 29, according to Gerry. “We were only issued insurance requirements from DCC in writing on May 22.

“The festival committee set about trying to obtain quotes for our events which proved very difficult as a number of insurance companies would not give us a quote.”

The festival committee have secured a quote for €2,900 for the insurance, which DCC said they would cover as the lead agency.

However, it remains uncertain whether this will have to be covered out of the existing budget of €10,000 allocated for the festival, or whether the money will be found elsewhere to pay for this additional cost.

The insurance policy also sets out limitations on what activities can be organised, particularly for the Family Days.

“We have had no discussions with regards to budgets for the festival despite us putting it in writing early April. It’s not possible for the Festival Committee to run the events throughout the community for €10,000 given the increase in costs,” Gerry said.

The steering group of the Ballyfermot Cherry Orchard Festival held “an emergency urgent meeting” on Tuesday evening, May 27, at the Ballyfermot Civic Centre.

According to Gerry, there was a “strong turnout” to 30 people from groups involved in the festival were in attendance, along with three officials from the council’s Community Department.

“It was very strong turnout of all the organisations have been doing this for years, a lot of experienced people who know their stuff,” he said.

However not much appears to have been decided at Tuesday’s meeting, with further meetings set to take place between the festival committee and senior council officials last Thursday and Friday.

Much uncertainty still remains over the budget, he continued, because “we definitely don’t have enough money to do it. And the other thing is the big implication around the changes in the insurance”.

“Unfortunately, the Festival committee should be spending the last month finalising events and indeed putting on more events and encouraging all community organisations to get involved in the festival.

“They were fairly positive in the end on Tuesday night that it’ll be sorted,” Gerry noted. “But it has to be sorted, it can’t drag on.”