Mr. Matt McGranaghan:

The €1 million was given to the St. Patrick's Festival in March. I do not know the breakdown of that funding, where it has got to or if it has reached the artists and the crews, the people most in need of it, as the Chair said. Regarding MEBAS, we must, in fairness, give credit to the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin. She has done great work in advocating for the industry. Could more be done? Yes, it probably could. However, MEBAS is the only non-competitive support afforded to the industry and the Minister fought hard to make that happen. Every other support given to this industry so far is competitive. Looking at business supports such as the CRSS and the small business assistance scheme for Covid, SBASC, those are not competitive schemes. Support is provided once the eligibility criteria are met. Unfortunately, there are criteria involved even in MEBAS which are not present in other Government support schemes such as the SBASC. We have a minimum business cost to produce. Strand 2 of MEBAS, for example, offers grant support of €4,000 on turnover of more than €50,000 and up to €100,000. It is necessary to supply minimum business costs of €5,000 or €6,000 when applying for that strand of MEBAS, but it is not necessary to do that for applications submitted for support from the SBASC.