Mr. Gerard Keenan:

I thank Senator Warfield for his questions. I will make a general point. We have lost our way entirely in terms of culture, music and art in the classroom. I endorse everything Dr. Orla McDonagh said. I happily went to DIT for years as a child when the VEC ran it. I came from a very ordinary working class background in Walkinstown.

The college of music was affordable but that has changed dramatically despite the best efforts - I worked there for 12 years - of the people in it. There is a huge financial barrier to children taking specific music lessons which is an awful shame. I find it extraordinary and, taking note of the recent RTÉ crisis, if one looks at the 1970s and 1980s - I am old enough to have been there - there were seven theatre companies in Limerick, but there is not one now. The last one is Bottom Dog and it is nearly closing. There are simple things like that. I remember taking part in amazing things in the Project. RTÉ had a full orchestra. It had a concert orchestra and the RTÉ singers. The bottom line with all of this is that it was in very difficult times in Ireland. That is why I feel so strongly about this. This is where we have lost our way. Music in education was removed. It is like the leaving certificate now; it is all about points. Maybe I am just looking for romantic Ireland and it is dead and gone and all of that but the point is it made a wonderful difference to a generation. People were very resilient. There were people like Gabriel Byrne doing things in the Project. I was lucky enough to be part of that. There was Peter Sheridan and all those sorts of people and musicians like Brian Dunning. They are still around and still practising their art. There was music in ordinary schools. In my case, I wanted to learn the trumpet. My uncle Frank played the trumpet. I was able to afford to go. When I am asked what the Department can do, that is what it can do. It comes back to proper funding. The Department should realise that an arts education in any art whether verse, acting or music, makes for better, more resilient and more adaptable people. We are lecturing non-stop about the change in the economy and about what people need to be able to do. Arts are proven, as Ms McDonagh has referred to. It is fascinating. It is all there in Finland. Everything is there, the orchestras and the music. I met a wonderful trumpet player, Pasi Pirinen, who was very talented. Let us say he was from Newport in Mayo and the trumpet teacher was in Dublin. The trumpet teacher was paid to go half way by the Government and a local organisation paid Pasi Pirinen to go half way to meet the teacher. That sort of thinking is important. Look at what a progressive country it is despite all the hard times. I have wandered a bit in my answer. It is worth remembering where we came from and we seem to have forgotten.

To answer Senator O'Donnell's question, 20% of the funding for Sing Out With Strings is from local government and that is it, the rest we raise with a dog and pony show going around saying "Please give us €10,000". My answer was a bit long.