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Authors received €200,000 (£180,026) in Irish Public Lending Remuneration (PLR) payments in 2015, €100,000 (£90,013) less than the figure paid in 2014, according to the Irish Examiner.
Payments dropped by a third despite the number of eligible books loaned remaining steady at more than 5.1 million.
PLR payments also dropped, to an average of €35.69 (£32.13) per author compared to €48.33 (£43.50) in 2014.
A spokesman for Ireland’s environment minister, Simon Coveney, said the budget for any funding issue was dependent on the overall budget secured by the department.
“The amount provided for the Public Lending Remuneration scheme in 2015 simply reflects the amount available in the context of competing spending priorities across the department,” he said.
Authors in Ireland are paid 4.09 cent (3.68 pence) per loan compared to the 6.66 pence in the UK. There is also a cap on earnings, as writers can only receive a maximum payment of €1,000/£900 (in the UK the maximum payment is £6,600).
The Irish Examiner also found that most of the PLR payments were made in sterling, so were probably to UK-based authors.