Ms Angela Dorgan:

On the second issue, credentials are a broad field. There are different requirements depending on where one is accessing and from whom. It is a track record for Arts Council bursaries. Most bursaries are designed for professional artists. While there are other ways that funding and support can get to a person for amateur activity, most bursaries and larger direct funds to artists are for professional artists. It becomes easier because one can demonstrate. Each sector has its own pins, as it were, of professional flagpoles. The music industry has those - it is when one does this or that and it is the same with acting and dancing. Each sector has its own credential-building criteria. In those sectors that do not, we bump up against each other enough. The arts is not one thing; it is a fluid sector. One can be a dancer, a graphic designer and an actor. Liv O'Donoghue is one such example as an artist. One can also be a volunteer in a national organisation as well, and it eats up one's time.

There are enough professional development flagpoles in place. The sector is incredibly robust in that regard. It is also incredibly robust and a leader in many other things, including making this pandemic safe and making interactivity safe. I attended a meeting the other day at which a Department of Health official was able to offer an analysis about a particular place, which I will not name. The Department was able to say that no Covid-19 cases had come from that cultural institution. When we get used to Covid - I refer to Deputy Mattie McGrath's question as well on where is the fair and unfair - and we get better at dealing with it and pass the panic stage of this pandemic, it will be easier to start opening up more places as workplaces and for access. However, I am digressing a little.

The sector has professional development moments in most disciplines. If they are not in one's discipline and if it is a new discipline, there will be an organisation, whether it is a resource organisation or an arts activity in one's locality, that one will be able to lean on for that information.