Ms Marilyn Hyndman:

I echo that point. We offer a range of training schemes which are about getting people back into employment. We are also looking at creative apprenticeships in conjunction with the colleges, the Arts Council and local authorities. We also take on trainees under the Irish language broadcast fund scheme, with the majority now coming from the South. We have ended up taking on some of these trainees. Some of them come with a basic level of skills and education, but the majority do not. We participated in a survey for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport which found that the majority of those who participated went on to find jobs, most of them in related creative industries such as the theatre and so on.

The other scheme we operate is to do with active citizenship. Some of the people participating in the scheme are not interested in gaining employment in the media industry. Rather, they are working in their communities and their concern is to represent the issues of these communities. We attract a very wide range of individuals to that scheme, including older people, women, pastors, youth group members and members of ethnic minorities. For these participants, to echo what Dr. Brennan and Mr. Moore said, it is about getting the issues across.