Mr. Frank Foley:

One of the positives for AIMS during Covid was that musical theatre was finally recognised by the Arts Council. We would like to thank Niall Doyle and all his staff in the Arts Council for the help and support given to us and especially for the much-needed funding, which we hope will continue in the years ahead. This funding enabled us to put in place a mentoring and performance critical appraisal pilot scheme, which is currently running among our societies and will be complete in summer 2023.

We would like to develop this programme for the entire musical theatre sector, including in education and schools, to educate and develop this sector with a tailor-made programme suitable for school musical theatre performances. This will be carried out on an AIMS regional basis, with regional-based mentors in place. This input with professional and experienced mentors will greatly benefit schools and young people as well as enhance the standard of performances in school musical theatre in their local community and further help the musical theatre sector as the students move into third level education and the professional sector.

With the committee's support, we hope that the role of musical theatre education can be protected, nurtured and helped to continue growing. I am excited to hear that there are changes coming not only in the junior cycle, with artistic performance as a short module, but in the leaving certificate curriculum, including a new subject, namely drama, film and theatre studies. I hope musical theatre could be a part of this new subject and especially artistic performance. As stated, many secondary schools already perform and stage full musicals annually. Having musical theatre added as part of this subject would be very beneficial. Many thanks for listening to us.