Mr. Pádraig Naughton:

As regards Arts & Disability Ireland Connect, I will just deal with 2021 when we awarded funding to 24 artists. Some 47% of the artists who applied were successful. I would say the funding is adequate, but there are always more opportunities, especially tailor-made opportunities. One of the big issues at the moment is that funding alone is not always enough. There is an issue, for example, if a deaf person who is a sign language user needs to negotiate or find a mentor. He or she needs sign language interpretation support to do that. Currently, the resources are very limited in terms of making that support available to them. We have been talking to the Arts Council about extending support. The other issue is within the awards themselves, when an artist is funded, currently most of the access support that is required needs to come within the project funding. Again, in conjunction with the Arts Council, we are looking at how we can address that issue.