Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It has always fascinated me that we have got to the stage where we are thinking and living in our heads. I have watched the university system over 30 years and it grew into a place that one would go to university to learn how to make a film. A person went to learn the sociology, the philosophy or the psychology of film or the brilliance of film and learn about the literature and writing of film, but to make a film takes an awful lot of ability. Students came out from university thinking they were going to make films when they were nowhere near the concept of visualising a world for screen. This is why I use the word "apprenticeships", which I say in the context of the glory of the great mosaics of years ago, great artists of the stained glass windows, writers and dramatists. This is why I suggest that the Department of Education and Skills is looking for validation and QQI awards within that. The Departments do not, however, communicate with each other here, which I have learnt as an innocent. One nearly has to go in and say "This is the route you could take and this is the conduit where people could have exactly that". They could continue to be trained until they become mentors or artists of the construction, as well as writers. I hear the problem but having said that, the film industry in Ireland is a credit to all the representatives sitting before the committee today.