Ms Tania Banotti:

To respond to the Senator about money for promotions and project managers, everyone present has a different way of funding, but I can certainly say for the Creative Ireland programme that we do not haggle. Sometimes people apply for public money, they ask for €100 and they are given €50. That is not how we work. If someone says it needs €100 to do that project, that is what he or she is getting.

I can give the Senator a practical example in the creative climate action fund the Minister, Deputy Martin, has launched. That is a €3.6 million fund for artists who are going to communicate the climate crisis. It was made very clear in that brief that there would be funding for a project manager and separate funding for promotion, etc. In that instance, we are certainly doing our best, but it is probably fair to name that stone in this meeting, which is there is probably no one in this room who will prepay someone to write an application. That is the truth of it. Doing that is essentially speculating with your work in the hope that, if you get the grant, you can make up for that launch time, unless the Arts Council does pay people to write applications. I do not think anyone does that. We recognise the in-kind effort being made, but it is tricky for public money to go for the grant application stage, for the writing. However, there may be organisations around the table that fund that.

We recognise the amount of time that goes into applications. It is no secret about the frustration with the length of the forms. All we can do is say that, at the opposite end, if you get the money, and obviously every single project now references the recommended arts rate that Ms Kennelly and the Arts Council publish, no artist is asked to do anything for free.