Ms Siobhán Bourke:

First, I do not think we have all the answers here. Our feeling and thoughts are that we believe there probably has to be a cross-departmental, cross-government approach. I understand the Department of Justice yesterday announced a new agency on domestic violence. It could be that an agency such as that might be able to fulfil some of these roles, but we are not privy to that information yet. Our feeling is that there should be a place where people can go to register their complaints anonymously and have a sense that they will be dealt with. There is some learning to be had in the third level sector. Working with the Department we know it is actively engaged in the process of seeing what learning can be had at third level so we can build something that is going to work for everybody. We did not call for a separate agency, certainly not a separate agency for the arts. We were trying to put in place measures that could be implemented now to deal with the people who are coming to our door, to the Arts Council and to the Department with complaints, measures that could be rolled out as soon as possible.

The difficulty is that as soon as one starts to think about what one of those would be, such as having a 24-hour helpline which we are doing with Minding Creative Minds, that all takes time. One must have the proper clinical approach, one has to test it all, one has to get all the partners in place and then one has to pilot it. We are about at the stage to pilot it and then in the future X number of months it will be rolled out, but it all takes time. In that sense for us in ITI and leading on Speak Up, we do not feel we have all the answers. We are in constant conversations with all the parties here and with Screen Ireland, the Department, FairPlé and others about what are the best next moves and how to make them.