Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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One of the first things I wanted to do was engage with the council itself and that is why I met the chair and the former director as soon as possible after being appointed. That is why I brought the accounts to the Government as soon as I could, which had not been done, and that is why I initiated a complete governance and culture deep-dive, for want of a better word, into the Arts Council, because this was a phenomenal amount of money. Last week I allocated €500,000-odd for funding for grassroots music venues. I could do an awful lot of grassroots music venues for €7 million and that is the bottom line here.