Ms Sarah Bannan:

We have seven writers-in-residence with different universities up and down the country and only one of those is an Irish language writer-in-residence. The plan is to talk to our university partners about having an Irish language writer-in-residence. Sadhbh Devlin is in DCU and works with prospective teachers in trying to instil a love of reading and writing in the Irish language. The English-language writers-in-residence are mostly working with creative writing students. We have had initial conversations with a couple of universities that have an interest in having an Irish-language writer-in-residence who would work with creative writing students who are working through Irish. The purpose of these writer residencies for the Arts Council, which we have been doing for 30 years, is to provide a writer with a relative period of financial stability.