Ms Maureen Kennelly:

I am happy to say there are some examples of good practice and they have been prompted by the continuing debate, but also, with our increased investment from Government, we have been able to bring forward a new scheme called the capacity building scheme, whereby we want organisations to look at themselves and see how they can upgrade in terms of this. We have an umbrella organisation called Words Ireland for the literature sector that is bringing forward a code of behaviour for that sector. I am sure Ms Traynor is familiar with that. Some very good work is being done in that regard. Another example is the Fishamble theatre company. It has a very good equality, diversity and inclusion policy. There are many other examples.

The more people become in tune with the scoring and assessments, the greater the need for them to comply with the Arts Council. We assure the committee that we will be enforcing this. People will see an impact on their funding if we find they are not measuring up to the standards we expect.