Ms Aisling Moran:

I am delighted the Senator asked those questions because they are some of the matters I wished to cover. She made the point that we tag the arts onto something else. Sherkin Island Development Society does that. That is how we get our funding and our validation. It is tagged onto tourism, the economy or something because if we just look at it as it is it is sometimes not recognised for how great it is. Majella O'Neill will be able to tell the committee about that shortly.

With regard to a visit, everybody in the room is welcome to visit Sherkin Island. We will put them on a ferry on a beautiful day and they can all visit. We are very lucky that the programme co-ordinator from DIT, Dr. Glenn Loughran, is amazing. We have visiting lecturers. As Majella O'Neill mentioned, we had Jesse Jones and Dr. Michael Birchall from the Tate Modern. Throughout the course of the academic year DIT has people visit and give lectures. We open that up to the community so they are probably the best times for people to visit. We will let the members know about it. We are lucky that DIT puts so much into it. It is a Dublin based college and it recognises the value of this outreach programme, the access to education, being within the community and the value the community puts on it.

As to why the committee does not know about it, I am looking for a diplomatic answer to that.