Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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------because the training has not been there. I am not talking about the training where people have trained since they were a child. A young actor has to get a chance so I am not talking about that. There is something wrong about a national theatre that subscribes to everything to which Yeats subscribed, that has produced international world-class actors, some of whom are sitting opposite me, world-class directors and world-class playwrights and yet has no training school. I do not know if that is what the Abbey Theatre has in mind or if that is thought about. That would be the 300,000 or 400,000 nurturing. Perhaps I have asked too many questions because they are all really intertwined.

The actors in the Visitors Gallery, the practitioners sitting across from me and the Arts Council know more about this than I do. If I was to ask where I would find out the truth, I would not go to the media or to politicians. I sit in the Senate, so we are legislators. I would go to the theatre because Mark Patrick Hederman was in here last week and he said that we have forgotten that artists are the greatest cardiograph of the present and the prognosis of the future. The writer, the artist, the practitioner, the musician or visual artist will track where a country is far faster than any politician. He was talking about this philosophically but if we lose that, the great young talent and the passion to go into that work and into these areas of artistry, because, as we know we do not treat them properly, internally and externally, and we do not give them enough money, we are then in trouble.

Perhaps the witnesses might answer the questions on training and on the Bonnar Keenlyside report. Mr. Conlon might like to mention what he felt about writing this document and if he believes any of these matters will be answered because he co-ordinated this very well. Perhaps the Arts Council might say why it says things like "the unintended consequences". Ms McBride sounded like a politician when she said rebalancing was now required.