Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 29 January 2015

Public Accounts Committee

Vote 33 - Department of the Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht
Chapter 9 - Accounting for National Gallery of Ireland Expenditure
Financial Statements of the National Library 2012 and 2013

10:00 am

Photo of John DeasyJohn Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Hamill is not really answering the question. I understand what has been going on. I have read the list of historians and am aware Mr. Manning is chairing that committee. I see a danger in having politicians dealing with 1916. The people in Cabinet are fine people and many of them probably know more about history and the Easter Rising than I do, but the danger is that this will be used as an event for politicians to put their own political spin on things. Mr. Hamill takes direction in many respects with regard to policy when it comes to Ministers and politicians. The Civil Service should make it absolutely clear that this needs to be completely dispassionate when it comes to politics and that the brutal and clinical historical fact needs to be recorded. The people are ready for it. The use of events such as this by politicians across the board to spin things would disgust them. They are ready for clear, historical fact, warts and all.

When I go through the documentation that has been circulated, I see nothing about plans to commemorate or remember the people on both sides who died or the people who were caught in the middle, which is a very significant number.

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