Ms Maureen Kennelly:

Absolutely. Professor Rafter indicated earlier that we had a 90% increase in applications last year and we could fund just 51% of them. That illustrates for all of us the massive potential in the sector. The concern is to get artists back to work and audiences back to venues, festivals, etc., safely. Those are the concerns for the next six months. It will then be about ensuring that we can populate the map of Ireland with brilliant artistic activity and ensure we have this very healthy generation of artists to come.

We are very aware that many people have felt under-represented or perhaps marginalised from the arts in the past. Our equality, diversity and inclusion strategy is central to absolutely everything we do but it also requires investment.