Mr. Ollie Kenny:

To reiterate what we said in our opening statement, the impact has been devastating, not just on the practitioners, and there are many, but on the audiences that attend productions. Looking at the figures, up to 1 million people attend amateur drama productions and sightly more than 1 million attend musical theatre productions every year. Imagine the void left for people, not just in rural settings but North and South and in towns. These people have no events to go to. We talk about the pub being the only outlet to go to in Ireland. The people who go to amateur dramatic productions in the community halls and small villages are not a bit interested in going to the pub. They go to these events because they are a social outlet for them. The impact has been massive. We need to get back and to bring those people together again.