Ms Deborah Kelleher:

I will briefly add to what Ms Masterson has said. The good news is through the good works of the people in Longford and AIMS. As Ms Masterson said, there is a critical mass of young people whose ambitions are in musical theatre. In recent years, degree programmes have grown. For instance, Munster Technological University and Dundalk Institute of Technology also have musical theatre undergraduate programmes. There is, however, such a volume of applicants for places that it is still underserved. It is encouraging for our art form that the interest is there. Through the work that AIMS has done there is such a volume of interest and such support locally for it that it is almost an obvious area for the Government to develop. The problem is that as educators, we are still in the situation we were in after the last recession when our budgets were cut rather than increased. The willingness to develop things is not matched by the available resources that we have.