Mr. Paul Shovlin:

It is a privilege for me to be invited to appear before the committee today. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about myself and the National Library of Ireland, which I hope to serve as chairperson. I will try to answer any questions as comprehensively as I can.

The committee will already have received my written statement but I will summarise it now. I have had a fairly successful business career and believe I am well qualified to chair the National Library of Ireland. More important, I have worked extensively in the cultural and charitable sectors in non-profit roles. I have served on management boards and audit committees and I was inaugural chairman of the RDS foundation board, which co-ordinates the cultural, musical and educational programmes of the RDS. I have served as a board member of the National Library for the past five years. In that period, I have been an active board member, attending virtually all board meetings and participating in the library's audit committee. I also chaired the library board's sub-committee for the Seamus Heaney exhibition, which is planned for 2017.

My vision for the National Library is to increase national awareness of its unique mandate. We need to tell the story of the National Library more loudly than we have in the past. I will try to ensure that the library claims its place at the centre of international engagement in the context of Irish history, culture and heritage. I intend to promote the idea that the library is the appropriate destination for important national collections, such as the Heaney collection. It is also my intention to help promote a diversification of funding sources for the National Library.

I care about the National Library and am very committed to it.

The mandate I will have as chairman for the next 12 years, subject to the committee's ratification, will be my main work and responsibility. Other things I am involved in will be secondary to chairing the National Library.

That concludes my opening statement.