Following a campaign by Equity members, Northern Ireland’s Communities Minister has committed to publishing a new Arts Policy.
Equity's Save the arts: Lobby Stormont campaign called for the Northern Ireland Executive to take steps to ensure the delivery of the long-promised Arts Policy from Minister Gordon Lyons. The policy is the first crucial step to saving the arts in Northern Ireland, which have been in survival mode due to years of underfunding and a lack of government strategy.
Campaigners robustly lobbied MLAs of all colours over the past months, including a day of action at Stormont in September, which saw Equity members and arts activists march up to the steps of Stormont to deliver a letter of No Confidence in Minister Gordon Lyons.
The protest preceded mass meetings with Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), after which dozens of creatives sat in the public gallery to hear Minister Lyons be grilled on the lack of an arts policy and underfunding of the arts.
Win for campaign
At Stormont's Executive meeting on Monday 2 November, Minister Gordon Lyons was asked by Paula Bradshaw MLA when the policy we have been calling for would be available. He has now confirmed "The public consultation to inform the arts policy is expected to launch in the week commencing 16 November 2026." We will continue to hold Minister Lyons to account to ensure the policy is delivered.
We want to thank all the campaigners for showing up at our Lobbying day, for the 2,244 signatories to the letter of no confidence and for writing hundreds of letters to MLAs. We await the draft policy and you can be sure we will be contributing to the consultation - we'd encourage everyone who wants to save the arts here to do the same.
Alice Adams Lemon, Equity National Official Northern Ireland
