Ms Siobh?n Clancy:

I echo what has been said by my colleagues about the many programmes that support arts and education and their impact on young people. Those projects are hugely supportive of our arts practitioners as well, helping them to get to grips in the early stage of their careers with arts engagement and giving them the skills in communications, relationship building and project management to enable them to work towards larger-scale public art projects. Those opportunities arise a lot in educational and health settings. We have also found that these opportunities do not just affect the students; they also have a family and intergenerational impact. The students bring home their learning, enthusiasm and creativity and that has knock-on effects for lifelong learning. Cork is one of UNESCO's global network of lifelong learning cities. We have found this type of engagement to be hugely instrumental in meeting our remit in that regard.

To take things full circle, we have been supported by the Arts Council's creative inquiry approach, which is a longitudinal arts-based research approach focused on arts and older people. As part of that, we made many discoveries, not about how artists might engage with older people but about how older members of our communities and society like to be engaged with. Within that opportunity, many voices came forward, including from within the HSE and health and well-being organisations, as well as educational organisations, calling for support at Government level. There was a call for arts charters to allow staff within the different sectors and settings, such as the HSE, to take on the remit of educating their colleagues and continuing the partnerships that strengthen these types of projects.