DUBLIN, IRELAND.- The Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Enrique Juncosa , today (Friday 17 November) welcomed the substantial increase in funding being made available to the Museum for 2007 by the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.

�This increase of 9.4% in funding for current expenditure, which equates to �470,000, will enable us to advance our activities in a number of key areas,� he said. �It will allow us to continue to develop the scope and scale of our exhibitions programme, which in 2007 will include such leading international artists as Lucian Freud and Georgia O�Keeffe. It will also enable us to increase our investment in our highly-regarded education and community programme, with a series of talks by prominent art world figures, a new strand of children�s holiday programmes and a conference in connection with our Artists� Residency Programme.

Enrique Juncosa said that everyone at IMMA was deeply grateful to the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr John O�Donoghue, TD, and to the officials in his Department, for their unfailing support for the Museum and its activities. He also expressed the Museum�s appreciation for the additional funding of �1.7 million for IMMA�s acquisitions budget, announced by the Minister last week. �This special subvention will have a major impact on our plans for acquisitions to the National collection, and will assist greatly with our ongoing policy of addressing significant gaps in the Museum�s collection. It will also facilitate swaps with other international institutions, which are vitally important in the ongoing development of the temporary exhibitions programme. A further sum of �466,000 for the purchase of equipment will help us to move forward more quickly with our modernisation plans�, he said.