Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith ag na haíonna as a bheith anseo agus cheap mé gur cur i láthair an-suimiúil go deo a bhí ann. In the political sense there is often a lazy analysis that culture and heritage are the same thing but they are very different. Heritage is what came before us and culture is what exists now. The first presentation was interesting on how we can connect heritage with contemporaneous issues and Mr. Starrett mentioned housing. How do we fight for heritage as a political priority? Whenever we go abroad and put the face of Ireland to the world, heritage icons and arts and culture are to the fore but when we take budgetary measures at home they are way down at the bottom of the list.

I was very taken by Ms Clerkin's comment about the heritage officer being a one-person heritage section in each local authority. That was a strong comment. I know the witnesses might be constrained about how they answer my question but I would be interested to hear their response.

I taught for a long time in the inner city in Dublin. The heritage there is very different to that in the text books the children are handed. Their heritage is housing schemes, flat complexes, the docks, tuberculosis. It is a different way of life. When I was in school I could have recited every Land Act from 1870 but I was not necessarily as well versed in the housing schemes that came out of World War One or with what happened in tenement Dublin. How do we connect heritage with every type of community in Ireland? Ireland is not homogenous, there are different elements to the Irish nation that have a heritage that people need to connect with fully to make it theirs. That involves reaching out to disconnection, disenfranchisement and disadvantage, making Irelands of everybody, if one likes, that it belongs to them.

I am tickled that Mr. Starrett mentioned housing. When we try to rejuvenate a listed building – I am thinking of a flat complex in Ballybough - we cannot redevelop it because it is a listed building. How do we strike the balance between something that is worth saving and treasuring without it being an aloof aspiration which is not solving the needs of the day? How can the witnesses help us help them? How do we make heritage real to every community, particularly those which are disenfranchised, disconnected and disadvantaged and to new communities? How do we help heritage solve issues?