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Ireland's oldest independent publisher Mercier Press is to cut its 2010 literary list, after higher-than-expected funding cuts from Ireland's Arts Council.
The Cork-based group has seen its funding for this year slashed from £32,000 to £20,000—a drop of 37.5%. As a result, some titles which had been contracted for publication this year will have to be postponed, while books not yet signed will no longer be contracted.
Clodagh Feehan, managing director of Mercier, said: "We were prepared for a funding cut—we are a small business, and had to make our own cuts last year. Anyone with any savvy about what was going on in the world would have been prepared for a cut. But this . . . was far in excess of what we had expected."
Feehan said this was the largest cut "by far" for any of the English-language publishers based in Ireland, adding there was a lack of clarity over why the reduction had been so great.
"We don't really understand the decision-making process behind it," she said, adding that the team was "more reluctant" to contract books for next year until there was more clarity. Feehan is meeting representatives of the Arts Council, which she stressed she had a "good relationship with" this week in the hope of getting more information.
"We are very effective in reaching our audience, but that doesn't mean the books don't need the Arts Council funding," she said. "We have a strong literary tradition in the company, and literary work unfortunately isn't very profitable, but we do feel it is important to make this contribution.
We wouldn't be publishing those books without funding."