Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will make a final point. What you are setting out to do is to create a cultural ecosystem at community level. If the talent is to emerge, which talent the Arts Council may support, it will emerge through that ecosystem. If it is not there, you are losing out on so much opportunity. I remember as a teenager seeing Colm Wilkinson singing in Jesus Christ Superstarin Loughrea with the Loughrea Musical Society. Two years later he was on the West End in Les Misérables. That opportunity needs to be presented over and over again at community level and I am disappointed in the Arts Council. The way it has approached this seems to keep that at arm's length and it seems to have no interest in even acknowledging that it has a role in Irish cultural life. The committee needs to look at proposing alternatives, such as a direct funding stream that recognises and acknowledges that importance.