Mr. Brian Rowntree:

I invite members of the committee or anyone else to please visit as seeing is believing. We can all be creative, innovative, appreciate and mainstream. It is important that the arts not be seen as a survival course; they must be seen as something that is endorsed and a business that represents those who are investing their skills and time in an enterprise. What we have to do is help the arts to mould and others around them into a fabric that society appreciates and understands is required and that it also sees as sustainable. One cannot develop the arts until one develops the framework and foundations on which they are set, as otherwise they are doomed to fail. As I said, there is a need for a combined platform of policy, strategy and resources. The resources can be brought to the table by the arts, but they must also be underpinned by social and investment capital from the State.