Ms Anna Walsh:

One of the big difficulties for the 70-odd arts centres throughout the country is that the funding mix on the capital side is as varied. For every situation Mr. McIntyre has described, there is another situation where it is a different mix of funding. It is challenging for any director or manager of an arts centre to navigate all those sources of funding and, in some cases, find matched funding, as well as doing the capital works and programming the venue. There are no clear pathways or framework to access that funding and make it easy. People who run community groups, arts groups or venues are not project managers for major capital programmes yet the environmental and sustainability targets are there for everybody and they need to be responded to and met. It requires investment, however.