Ms Annette Nugent:

Absolutely. To pick up on something that was said by the Senator, space for the arts is key for local and community investment. We should really commend the investment that has been made to date by the Government and the cultural infrastructural investment that has happened directly from the Department, from the Arts Council and from local authorities. There has been a huge investment in space. However, in the context of what needs to happen now, the local authorities and the State do not own every building or space. Many times local authorities have no control over what happens to buildings. Therefore, a missing leg in that regard is how to - I am going say something terrible - incentivise property owners and developers to ensure, either by means of a carrot or a stick, that, within any development, space is made for the arts. Here is where I come back to my comment about working with colleagues in the planning departments because local authorities can only enact what exists in planning legislation, so there is probably a piece of work to be done in stretching beyond the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media to other Departments that can have an input in this regard.