Ms Maureen Kennelly:

After the economic crash of 2008, resources were extremely depleted, as they were across the public sector. When I started in 2020, the Arts Council was still in fact suffering from that depletion of resources. It was very underpowered. The Arts Council was bringing in quite a lot of contract staff to take on roles. In the new dawn of increased resources, which was fantastic, we were able to bring on significantly more staff. I mentioned IT resources, HR resources and other very important corporate services, as well as those who deal directly with artists and arts organisations.