Ms Karly Greene:

There were two questions for us so I will take the first question about the impact for communities on the budget allocation. We still do not know our final budget allocation but we were asked to prepare and plan based on a 10% cut, which is just devastating. given that our baseline has not shifted in ten years and that there was already a disparity in the per-capitafigures. We worked very closely with the officials to demonstrate that an investment in the arts is worthwhile. The Department with responsibility for community is also responsible for housing, social security and pensions, so that is what we are up against. It is through, constant research, evidence, and evaluations of all those amazing projects that we are able to demonstrate that this is a worthwhile investment and that we need much more than what our existing baseline was, never mind a 10% cut. We work closely with officials on that.

There was the other very good question about cross-Border collaboration and the ability of organisations in the North to collaborate fully. The answer is that it is really challenging. One thing that comes up is pay rates in terms of being able to pay people up North appropriately. There are capacity challenges. Our baseline has not risen in ten years and that is effectively a cut in the organisation's funding over ten years. We really rely on partnerships and that is the same across the island where we may be a lesser financial partner but the strategic networks and knowledge we share are really important. Networks can also be an issue with organisations in the North. When there are existing networks in the North and South it works and there are brilliant examples of that from the Abbey Theatre-Lyric Theatre collaboration. However if there are budget cuts and no capacity to build such relationships, it is really challenging.