Ms Katherine Licken:

I acknowledge that Deputy Ó Snodaigh and his family have a long association with the cultural and arts sector. He is right. While the online experience we had during Covid-19 has been really great, it is not for everybody or every art form. We very much acknowledge that. Part of the funding for the Arts Council and the council's response has been to repurpose its bursaries and provide more bursaries for artists, so they can continue to do work during the pandemic. That is critically important. We recognise that. Books played a significant role during the pandemic and bookshops were very innovative in delivering books to people that sustained them through the crisis.

As for the cultural institutions, we were delighted that six of our cultural institutions reopened in whole or in part on Monday, thereby opening up those treasured collections once again. They also were accessed online and there was a huge surge in people searching the National Archives during the crisis. On Monday morning, we went to the National Library, located next door, to see it reopen and it was good to see people in its reading room already.

As I said, the Arts Council is offering bursaries to develop work for the future. Screen Ireland has pivoted its funding to fund scriptwriters in order that they can develop projects for shooting in 2021 and beyond. Creative Ireland has been trialling some innovative programmes that Ms Banotti might talk about.