Ms Garry Hynes:

What the Senator has articulated is very pertinent. We are so accustomed to the idea that artists will do what they do in any event because they love what they do and it is not really work, and that arts are about passion. The sense that the arts are something other is at the heart of thinking about financing the arts. The questions the Senator asked are important and we should address them in whatever way we possibly can, in our own work, which, I hope, we are doing, and as part of the various fora. We need to make the various organisations, such as the Arts Council, decide that while it is critical that artists make art that we think they should make, such as art for children or people who live in remote areas, as Druid Theatre does, it is also critical that we fund artists in order that the individual actor or maker of art does not suffer. We must stop talking about the arts all the time and talk more about artists.