Mr. Paul Fahy:

In terms of synergies between us, there are probably far more natural bedfellows. Festivals tend to communicate more and would be very supportive of each other. In terms of our festival changing and becoming a producing-led model, to do that, we effectively started with the same funds and pot of money we had as just a presenting festival. To be able to produce, create and support our artists who were making ambitious work, we needed to have core producers so we have a small core group of theatre companies and individual artists with whom we work on an ongoing basis and with whom we have created a lot of our work.

Senator O'Donnell discussed static theatre being dead and whether festivals are places to look to in terms of exciting work. Festivals are always great places to look to in terms of exciting work. One of our greatest collaborators is Enda Walsh, who is probably Ireland's leading playwright. We work a lot with Landmark Productions in terms of making all these shows happen. They all originate in Galway and tour extensively around the world. In terms of their wizardry, they have been hugely admired by many commentators.

In terms of other ambitious works, when the Galway International Arts Festival was founded 41 years ago - the first festival took place in 1978 - the two key venues back then were an old farmer's shop that had been converted into a gallery space and a very small tent. Here we are 41 years later in 2018 and our biggest venue is a big plastic tent that holds 3,500 people in a field with no electricity while the second one is an imagined space that becomes a big gallery. While Galway has improved hugely in terms of other cultural infrastructure, we still face huge challenges in how we create leading international work in those kinds of spaces that can go on to tour the world and how we present work that coming from state-of-the-art buildings around the world.

We are working towards an amazing project in 2020 with the visual artist John Gerrard in building these three pavilions, one of which will be positioned across Galway's River Corrib and powered by the water and another one that will be on the bogs of Connemara. They are two very challenging projects. One of them will be in Deputy Ó Cuív's jurisdiction. They are very ambitious. We have an endless number of projects in the can that we are constantly developing and working on.

In terms of our model, we are funded year to year and plan three, four or five years ahead. We need to do that to keep pace with the international scene but also in terms of the way artists work and the way their careers progress. We need to be able to plan, develop and nurture over that period, so trying to plan financially for all of that is challenging when we are funded from year to year. What else did I want to mention?