Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have several questions and points. First, the arts matter. That is an issue we were debating last week. There are votes in this issue. The most intense lobbying I got when I was first elected in 2004 concerned section 481 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997. Everyone in the film industry and their brothers, sisters, uncles and neighbours wrote individual letters to me and, I presume, to every other Deputy appealing for the protection of section 481, which is a tax incentive for the film industry. That was one experience I had of the potential votes in this issue. The other one was in the 2011 election. Some 400 artists in my own constituency wrote to me and asked me to sign up to a pledge. They invited me to a meeting attended by 300 or 400 people in the Project Arts Centre. Sometimes we forget that there is a vote out there. The people we are talking about are in front of us. They are normal people, they live with us. They go to school with our brothers and sisters. They have the same needs as us. They have to eat, clothe themselves and pay a mortgage. We need to remember that.

There are a number of salient issues. If it is not appropriate to address them here, I urge the witnesses to bring them to the debate on Friday. One question is for the Arts Council to look at. There was a mention of double funding, whereby theatres would receive funding twice over because they have a production in the Abbey. I would not like to take funding away from any theatre. God forbid. I raise this to ensure we do not end up with a situation which is detrimental to the national theatre at the very least.

As for the participants and practitioners, what does one call a group of actors, playwrights and so on? There are so many different skills.