Mr. David Kavanagh:

The Association of Artists Representative Organisations sees the education sector as divided into two parts. One is education in the arts at primary and secondary levels. The provision here is inadequate but it is an area in which we do not have huge expertise. We concentrate on the other part, namely, provisions at third level for the training of artists. There has been a complete absence of a focused debate on the provision of large volumes of persons qualified to be artists vis-à-visthe actual possibilities for people to sustain careers as artists. In certain sectors, there is a dramatic overprovision of qualified persons, who are not going to be able to pursue careers in the arts because there are simply not enough places available for them to work. We would very much welcome some kind of debate on the appropriate means of preparing people for careers in the arts but we are not sure how it could work as there are so many contradictory requirements. From the perspective of working artists, there are very few careers available.