Ms Liz Meaney:

The Arts Council customarily makes input into policy and curriculum development in the Department of Education and Skills. We are in the process of developing a submission to the next round for the curriculum, which customarily will call upon the various heads of team and their expertise to inform it. We will develop a new dance policy for the Arts Council in the coming year as well, which will examine our strategy within dance, on which we will consult widely with the sector.

As mentioned, we are in a phase of rebuilding the ecology and strengthening the infrastructure, so we are again offering multi-annual funding through a number of different strands, including strategic funding, which is our core funding of the critical infrastructure, and arts grants funding. An example of a recently arts grants funded organisation would be Luke Murphy Dance based in Cork, which is associated with the Firkin Crane, which is a production company that receives arts grants funding and creates work and employment for artists. It is funded for a series of programmes over a number of years. We are beginning to take that approach again.

On Creative Schools, the programme is in 300 schools across the country. There are a number of different types of creative practitioners, including architects, dancers, musicians and opera singers, such as Sharon Carty.