Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is positive to hear that and I am not surprised either. Lyric FM has had a part to play in that. "Movies and Musicals" is one of the most listened-to shows and it is expanding to a new audience.

This session is important and the onus is on the committee to put together a strong and robust report with recommendations. It seems to me that one of the key recommendations and one of the first things we have to look at is potentially a specific funding stream. Whether that is administered through the local authorities or wherever, it needs to happen. The example I give is as follows. Mr. McIntyre mentioned that theatre in Cavan that was funded under the RRDF, which is amazing, but the problem with the RRDF and an issue we have had is that local authorities are only allowed to put forward a certain amount of projects for funding. It could be four or five for the entire county. Cork was mentioned, which is a huge county. If there are four or five projects in Cork, then it is easy to imagine the towns and villages that will be left out. Those four or five projects will not necessarily be successful either. They are competing with amenities, playgrounds, tourist attractions and everything else, and the odd theatre is winning out, probably because they are such good projects and because they make sense. We have to take away that competition and I back the calls of Senator Byrne and Deputy Cannon for a specific sports capital-type fund. That would help.

We are talking a lot about the renovation of existing theatres. There are some quite large towns that have no indoor public performance space or theatre, whatever you want to call it. Is that something the organisations present are looking at in trying to identify suitable buildings or spaces where there might not be a structure at the moment, namely, a site for purpose-built theatres?