Mr. Conor Newman:

I will take the questions in the order in which they were asked. On the future of the archives, Ireland has a very mixed track record of looking after its archives, and some of them are literally rotting before our very eyes while others are in an excellent state of preservation. We are fortunate we live in an age where digital technology allows us to digitise so much so much of our archives, and in particular to digitise them in searchable ways. For example, a number of projects are going on in the Digital Hub or with regard to digital humanities. At this stage, the technology is available to us and it is a question of personnel and resources, which obviously boils down to money. We need to be able to harness those in a way that does not damage the archive itself but turns it into a digital format in a way that is accessible.

There are obviously difficulties with the integration of all of those different digital formats. For example, we all have old computers and disks at home that we can no longer use because of their obsolescence. It is an ongoing commitment. Digitising an archive is not the end of the job; in fact, it is the beginning of a long-term commitment. If we are going to go down that road in Ireland, which we already have done to some extent, we have to do it with our eyes open as to the long-term commitment.

The Deputy is right to point out the interest in the archives of all kinds of bodies, from the religious orders down to organisations like railway societies and so on. There is an extraordinary compendium of information out there and an amazingly diverse audience of interest all over the world. It is ironic that people often become more interested in their roots and history when they leave these shores, as they are at the moment in their droves, than when they are on them. There is an opportunity there for philanthropic investment in archives. The Heritage Council is actively looking at this at the moment. We have just established a working group to look into the whole area of alternative avenues of funding, partly as a reaction to the huge cutbacks we have suffered in recent years but partly also because it is a way of getting a bigger buy-in from a wider audience. If I have not fully answered the Deputy's question, we can come back to it.

I thank Deputy Murphy for mentioning the Irish Walled Towns Network. It is a network of towns in Ireland that started life as, or at least at one point in their history became, walled medieval towns. We tend not to think we have them in Ireland, and we tend to visit them when we are on holidays in France. However, we have walled towns in Ireland, including some quite spectacular ones. It is very important they are looked after and even creating a network in and of itself has raised the profile of towns and what it is one has to do to preserve the sense that one is in a walled town. A walled town has a very particular sense. There is a sense of being outside it, because one is extra-mural, and then inside it. The way that spatial development and planning happens both inside and outside the walled town is terrifically important to the maintenance or recreation of the ambience of a walled town.

Deputy Murphy asked whether we have other rabbits in the hat, as it were, that we can pull out and that would be networked in that sort of way. At the moment, no, we do not, although I am sure the Deputy is aware of the pilot project in Rindoon, County Roscommon, which involves an extraordinarily well-preserved deserted medieval town.

Using a slow sustained approach we have put it on the map and it attracts tourists. A body of people is interested in these deserted medieval villages and it may well be something we could consider for the future. When the Heritage Council identifies a motif such as the Irish Walled Towns Network we try to develop a number of pilots which lead to a template which others can follow, so rather than a bunch of communities waiting for the Heritage Council to arrive on their doorstep and deliver it for them, they learn how to do it from others and share the experience.

The question on getting buy-in to the national landscape strategy is very apposite. As I stated during my presentation, this is with regard to the incredible delicate phenomenon of living history. People have interesting and complex ways of attaching to their heritage and expressing these values. These values are not static; they constantly evolve and change as we re-examine history and look at it from today's perspectives with new insights. The key to getting buy-in is a combination of time and humility. The worst one can do is arrive and state we will solve everything, tell a community it has brilliant heritage, what that heritage is and how to manage it. Immediately the community will stop listening and will become slightly divorced from its own heritage because the people no longer feel it is theirs because it is being spoken about it in unfamiliar language with values which are also unfamiliar. The key to the national landscape strategy is giving it time, listening to people and using the opportunity for education.

The question was asked as to whether education per seis valued enough and it was stated there is more to heritage than simply history. This is correct, which is why I stated the Heritage Council would like to achieve a sense of sectoral identity, but this is management talk which forgets our sense that heritage is something in and of itself and is a combination of many things. In Ireland we need to move from a situation where heritage is a minority interest to where it is more common and routine for people to speak of it, and understand that heritage speaks to an integration of various value systems and areas of interest and that we educate people about this. The heritage in schools programme is very valuable but it is still at the mercy of school teachers and whether they are interested in having an expert speak to the children in the classroom. If possible we would like very much to introduce it as a more routine dimension in the curriculum at primary and second level, so whether the pupils continue to third level education or not they emerge with a sense of what it is to belong to this country and the way it works. They would have a sense of the plate to which they need to step up to preserve and maintain the values they have inherited, and see it not as the chains of history but rather steps on a ladder to a brighter future with an Irish gloss.

The submission from the Heritage Council to the national landscape strategy emphasised repeatedly the importance of public consultation and public buy-in. It will not work if the public is not on board. It cannot be rushed. It is quite correct to ask why it has not been published but I cannot give the answer. The Heritage Council has pushed for it. Much progress was made two years ago and then we went into a critical review process. I understand the development of the national landscape strategy was held in abeyance until this process was complete because the same office was carrying out the critical review and it was simply a question of not being able to do everything at the same time. It has kick-started again and it will be interesting to see how it emerges. My desire is that the national landscape strategy will have at its core the principle of public engagement on an ongoing basis, and not just public consultation, which is easy, but public engagement with a sense of ownership. This is because in Ireland we desperately need a sense of ownership of the landscape with a sense of generosity rather than being closed.

I briefly mentioned philanthropy in respect of the future of our archives and the Heritage Council is looking into this at present. Typically philanthropists are interested not in funding day-to-day running costs but in funding particular projects. When the group meets in the Heritage Council one of its jobs will be to examine specific projects which might be able to attract the attention of external and philanthropic funding. The type of projects likely to succeed are particular conservation projects or heritage motifs of which a philanthropist can see the beginning, middle and end, and its configuration. One of the council members, Dr. Henry J. Lyons, who will leave the Heritage Council next week as his term has come to an end, has much expertise in philanthropic funding. He is one of the people behind the Jeanie Johnston project and the restoration of the Blennerhassett windmill in County Kerry with which some committee members are familiar. All of this was funded through philanthropic funding. We hope to be able to avail of Dr. Lyons's expertise in this regard when we reconvene.

I share Deputy Corcoran Kennedy's praise for the heritage officers. It is a most extraordinary network and they are an amazing bunch of people. We need more of them. We do not have a heritage officer in every county. I am not as concerned as the Deputy is about the future of heritage officers because local authorities really value them and over the years they have developed a strong sense of the value of having a heritage officer on board. Some counties are big and complex enough to merit more than one heritage officer and I would like to see the numbers increase. I cannot see it happening in the short term but in the medium and long term we ought to think about it because as the sense of public ownership of heritage evolves there will be a greater demand for local authorities to roll up their sleeves even further in this respect. The Heritage Council is fully committed to maintaining the heritage officer programme. Funding is probably what the Deputy considers to be the one item which is likely to be a threat to the future of the programme, and all we can do is remind the House of the value of the heritage officers and the amazing work they do in local communities. It is something we simply cannot afford to reverse and it needs to be grown.