Ms Maureen Kennelly:

It was transformative. It went from €80 million in 2019 to its current level of €140 million. Naturally, I understand people saying that our staffing cohort expanded very significantly because it did indeed. I want to underline that the remit also massively expanded. The Arts Council now runs Culture Night, which is accessed by 1.4 million people every year. We run a fantastic programme called Creative Places involving 19 towns which have previously been neglected by very little investment. We run Creative Schools. Some 28% of schools across Ireland take part in it. Looking after children and young people is very much a priority for the current Arts Council.

I mentioned previously about the 3,000 applications going up to 8,600. There are good new imperatives, such as equality, diversity and inclusion and climate action that the Arts Council needs to pay attention to. The previous Minister did fantastic work in this regard. I worked in the sector for 32 years and I am very aware of leading small organisations, with just three or four people. I can imagine looking at something and saying, "Oh my gosh. That looks amazing but how does the Arts Council expect me to do my work on this threadbare, skeleton staff?" The number of strategically funded organisations rose by 52% between 2019 and 2024. This is still not enough but we were able to make significant increases to people so that they could enhance and strengthen their core.