Ms Shirley Clerkin:

I will answer the question on just having one heritage officer in each area and explain how we can tackle contemporary issues in a contemporary society. One of the main roles of a heritage officer is to democratise heritage. We try to explain national legislation and policies, which committees like this one contribute to and develop at a national level. We, as heritage officers, bring legislation and policies within reach of ordinary citizens and allow them to see that as relevant to where they are and where they live. We base all of our heritage work in the local area. Our work is very much based on what type of place someone lives in whether that is vernacular buildings, industrial heritage or industrial landscapes. We try to focus on the community in which people are based and not a fantasy community they see in textbooks or history books.

The local authority heritage officer network was established in 1999, which was innovative thinking by the Heritage Council. The aim was to reach the objectives of the Heritage Act that established the Heritage Council. The objectives would have been very unachievable with just 14 staff members of the Heritage Council, which is the cap on council numbers in legislation. The network allowed the Heritage Council to promote its heritage objectives in local authorities and heritage communities. The programme has been rolled out around the country since the establishment of the network. There is one heritage officer per local authority and the number of heritage officers has not expanded. However, the demand for our services has increased exponentially over the past 20 years, particularly over the past ten years during the bust because communities have re-engaged with their place and sense of place. There has been re-engagement with people and one another. We have tried to use heritage as a new driver for economic activity. We have tried to use local places and heritage assets as a way to move tourism into places that probably had not been reached by tourism before. We sought to use authentic heritage assets such as tour guides from local communities or whatever. The demand for such services is huge. In order for such heritage work to be done in an authentic way, we have provided support to local communities in order that their heritage objects or places are not commodified without their co-operation. We have worked with people in communities to identify what is important about their area, to help them to conserve it and then to build on that by promoting places through other tourism assets in order that the tourism asset can become part of tourism initiatives such as Ireland's Hidden Heartlands, Ireland's Ancient East of whatever.

The network works with communities. Sometimes we work with road sections on planning applications. We also work with economic development within our local authority and we work at the museum services with cultural teams. Finally, we work with all local communities and our heritage forum. The demand for our service has been at pinchpoint for the past seven or eight years. There is great opportunity to support and facilitate communities to further develop in this area, particularly when the new national heritage plan is out for consultation at present. There is a great opportunity for us to punch above our weight in this area. As Dr. Bourke has correctly pointed out, this country constantly sells its national Irish heritage and it is heterogenous, not homogenous. Our heritage is very distinctive and is based in local areas and we could support it better.