Professor John O'Hagan:

I thank Senator Fiach Mac Conghail for his questions. I used to teach him, but he is now getting his own back. The first point he made was very important. The report is generally very favourable about the operation of the Arts Council in terms of governance, transparency and the information provided on inputs and outputs. It is a positive report on the council's operation at a time when there were significant cuts in expenditure. It is not just the data that tell us the organisation is changing and adapting. We need more data and a strategy unit, but it should be centralised in the Department. As Mr. Ó Coigligh said, there are implications for the Department, as well as for the Arts Council.

The Senator asked what would happen if we had no Abbey Theatre or no Joyce. We asked students about the role of the European Parliament, but as we could not get them interested, we rephrased the question and asked if they thought there should be no European Parliament. All of a sudden that engaged them; therefore, it can be useful to ask the same question in a different way.

The report went way beyond economic benefits and there was quite a bit on societal outcomes. Economic benefits were only third on the list.

The Senator asked how we provided the evidence. I started in this area by producing a study of the economic and social benefits of the Wexford Opera Festival, 27 years ago. One of the things on which we focused was what did the festival do for the community in Wexford in the sense of cohesion. I went there this year to get a sense of the feeling in the town, although I never go to the opera. We interviewed a lot of people and documented the findings. They said it was beneficial, even though they also never went to the opera. The Wexford Opera Festival is a niche offering as it just includes rare operas and specialises in new design. The innovation argument can be tracked, however, as it is possible to interview a lot of people. We can find people on "Fair City" and track their careers back to where they began. Did they begin in the public, subsidised sector and was that the test bed for them? In West End theatres they say new works of art would dry up without the subsidised sector. We need to ask if the commercial sector could survive without the subsidised sector. A lot of evidence can be provided in that regard.

We also looked at the economic benefits to Wexford. These are not just to bed and breakfast establishments, although almost half of the people who come to Wexford for the festival are from outside Ireland. We also tracked the reputational effects, which astonished me. We went through The New York Times, the Financial Timesand other newspapers and the reviews were astonishing. That is qualitative evidence. It might be a tale, but the sector needs to make some attempt to provide these data. Rather than just saying there are no data or that they have an argument in principle, they should provide a convincing narrative.