John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

If those adjustments had not been made, the economy would not have weathered the storm which many other economies failed to weather during that period. Those adjustments have proven to be the correct course of action. Time has proven the Government was right. While there were slight cutbacks in terms of the budget for the Arts Council at that time, these have been more than made up for. Again, we have seen a substantial increase in Arts Council funding this year.

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