Cecilia Keaveney (Fianna Fail)

Senator O'Toole is no longer in the Chamber but he understands my position regarding what he said yesterday. It can be said that the two issues are not linked but Senator O'Toole linked them when he mentioned the two of them in his contribution yesterday. As a musician and a former chairman of the arts committee in the previous Dáil, I may be over-sensitive about the issue but when money for the Abbey Theatre, the National Concert Hall, and Comhltas is mentioned, it immediately draws fire from someone to the effect that money is being taken from some other area. As a musician and an artist I believe we are entitled to invest in the arts as much as we do in any other sector. The issue central to Senator O'Toole's contribution yesterday was valid in its own right. I understood what he was saying in Irish but by linking the two issues in the same contribution, it came across as being an attack on the arts.