Ms Jane Daly:

As we said in our statement, some of our recommendations are short-term initiatives that can be enacted very quickly and others require longer-term cultural change. In the immediate term, there has been some positive change in terms of recommendations we have made. The Arts Council has referred to conditions of funding and Screen Ireland has also introduced this in its funding criteria. Compliance with those funding criteria is very important. Those criteria will only be effective if they are monitored and the recipients of awards are actually proven to be compliant with the terms and conditions of funding.

We have been working closely with Minding Creative Minds, the organisation set up largely by the music industry in June 2020 which offers counselling services. It has worked in collaboration with us and departmental officials to look at introducing some of the recommendations we made in the report, including the introduction of a 24-hour helpline for people who have experienced these harmful behaviours. That initiative will be piloted very shortly with bespoke counselling services and referral services for people who experienced that.

One of the recommendations that needs to be addressed immediately relates to leadership within the sector and across the sector. We want to see organisations, institutions, individuals and key players across the arts sector stand up and support this work openly and vocally. Considerable progress needs to be made on the short-term initiatives. The larger systemic and cultural changes need to start happening now and not wait for other people to start the process for them.