Mr. Michael Starrett:

The choice of local authorities as key partners in terms of delivering the Heritage Council's work was fundamental from the outset. It has been maintained, and there is great support both at the level of the County and City Management Association as well as from the elected representatives. Ms Beatrice Kelly has been developing, with the chief executives of the local authorities, a cohort that we hope will cement that relationship for the next five or ten years. The business model of the Heritage Council is very deliberatively chosen. We have 14 staff, but we have great outreach. Effectively, in terms of the way the business model works, we did not want to grow into a huge bureaucracy with 28 heritage officers based in Kilkenny. They need to be out and about meeting people.

Mention was made of the education and training boards. The emerging strategic plan of the Heritage Council has a very strong emphasis on education. Its chairman designate, Michael Parsons, is a former secretary school principal and he is driving that forward. Our former head of business has just been appointed as a director in one of the education and training boards, so we have great outreach in that regard also.

Both personally and professionally, Brexit is posing big problems. I mentioned our three all-island initiatives. There is the Irish Walled Towns Network and the Museum Standards Programme for Ireland. The Museum of Free Derry has been a very active member of the Irish Walled Towns Network. Carrickfergus and Derry city have been in it also. The Irish Landmark Trust has properties across the whole of the island. Much of the funding for some of those initiatives came through the European Union. Whether the Northern Ireland Government will be in a position to maintain that is one of the challenges we face.

We also made a very detailed submission in terms of the national planning framework as that was emerging and the implications for heritage in terms of a national landscape strategy, the general planning framework, etc. There are consequences for heritage, but also for the communities that live and work in that heritage.