Ms Attracta Brady:

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Chathaoirligh as an seans teacht chun labhairt libh inniu ar son an Chomhaltais agus go deimhin ar son an chultúir féin.

Caithfidh mé a rá i mo thuairim agus i dtuairim a lán daoine anseo, go bhfuil an ceol traidisiúnta in Éirinn níos láidre anois ná mar a bhí sé riamh agus go deimhin le blianta anuas.

As regards our education tá sé neamhfhoirmiúil, ní bhaineann sé mórán leis na scoileanna. Almost all of our education programmes take place take place outside the school setting. It is true, as a previous speaker noted, that many parents have to travel. Comhaltas Ceoltóirí na hÉireann offers approximately 1,200 branch classes per week in Ireland. Our local branches organise teachers to teach children, young people and adults on a community basis. We are, therefore, a non-ageist organisation. Everyone is welcome to come to our music classes and learn how to play an instrument or sing a song. People can also learn how to dance, whether sean-nós, céilí dancing, set dancing or old style solo dancing. They can also learn an teanga Ghaeilge freisin. They learn repertoires, core repertoires of the songs, dances and tunes in an informal setting. They can use the tunes afterwards to play music with people of all ages. We are very proud that the organisation has people of every age involved and learning and performing music.

When we teach music we know that not everybody will end up a musician, singer or dancer. We are proud that when we teach, we are also teaching the listener because a performance is not possible without listeners. One needs the performer and the listener and we have many listeners in our music classes.

In terms of current music, last week, during one of the biggest and longest music tours ever in this country, Beoga performed with Ed Sheeran. All members of the group are Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann-trained musicians. They came through our ranks as junior children being brought by their parents to the music classes. They came through the Scrúdú Ceolta Tíre, SCT, our graded examination system which features 12 examinations. Children, who do not necessarily succeed in competitions, can achieve excellence in a particular grade. It goes up to grade eight before moving to the advanced performer certificate, which is a public performance qualification with underlying theory.

We have Teastas i dTeagasc Ceolta Tíre, TTCT, through which our teachers qualify. We have more than 800 qualified traditional music teachers with the TTCT diploma. The course is run by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann every year and is in great demand among teachers who want to teach in their communities through local Comhaltas branches and outside the branches, for example, in schools, marching bands, céilí bands and grúpaí ceoil. During the summer, we provide many courses, for example, Scoil Éigse at Fleá Cheoil na hÉireann in Ennis last year. The course had 902 participants and 80 volunteer music teachers imparting their knowledge and experience for the week. At night time, the majority of the 900 students met their tutors and everybody played together in an informal setting. When we talk about education, we are not just talking about the classroom but also sessions, the fleánna ceoil and imparting knowledge, both for young and older people.

We offer many master classes, including in Drumshanbo and Ballaghdereen. Volunteer local branches also run a number of weekend workshops.

With regard to educational resources, the most basic resource we provide is the Trad is Fab pack, which was sent to every primary school in the country in the past few years. This was designed primarily for teachers who do not have much experience of traditional music, with the idea that teachers like to receive one package which tells them what needs to be done. The pack contains teacher notes, classroom notes, a DVD, student worksheets and background information.

That is being used bilingually in a great number of schools around the country.

When discussing the fleánna cheoil, these events have two elements. They have the informal sessions and céilithe and there are the formal competition areas. We view the competitions as necessary in the sense that they train children to achieve excellence and they can use the competitions as a means to an end. We have those in a very controlled atmosphere and to that end, we have adjudicator training courses. We train our call clerks and stewards in those courses to make sure we have proper behaviour and we have incorporated codes of practice in all those as well. All the fleánna are held at local - as in county - provincial, and all-Ireland levels.

Another part of our education programme is that we have the concert tours. People who have achieved a high standard of music and performance in our SCTs and in our fleánna cheoil are invited then to participate in our concert tours which ar held both in Ireland and indeed all around the world. I have been fortunate to have been on some of these. They are hugely important to the character building of these young performers. They are very important in the sense that they can learn stage presence, how to deal with international audiences and they can build friendships and a network. When we talk about community from an educational point of view, we can teach in the community. When these children and young people are educated in music, they progress to the community of our global music network with more than 400 branches all over the world.

One of the other elements of our activities is Treoir, which is published four times a year and is hugely important from an educational point of view. I will hand back to Mr. Ó Murchú now