Ms Maureen Kennelly:

It has impacted hugely on the staff. That was a huge concern for myself and for the senior team. We have worked really hard to engage with staff about it. We have a highly committed, deeply impassioned staff. They are very mission driven and it really upsets and distresses me still that their work is impacted because that affects the trust they have with the people they support, which is an extraordinary degree of trust. It is not a normal public service job. These are really highly committed and highly informed people. It is an enormous concern for me. We have worked hard to liaise with our staff, first and foremost, but also to liaise with the people who we fund. We try to do that as regularly as we can because of course people are concerned. Of course, those we fund are being asked and challenged about it. We have done extraordinarily well in increasing the level of public investment, which is absolutely brilliant but, as you can tell, is not enough. I certainly do not want this one-off isolated project to impact on the arts because they are absolutely essential to Ireland's success and the health of this country. I would like the board and the executive to work so hard to make sure that there is no impact.