Ms Gina O'Kelly:

I want to touch on some of the issues the Senator raised. We carried out a survey two years ago and collected information from the museum sector. The first key resource they were seeking was capacity. That was essentially staff, expertise and volunteers. Time was an issue that was very much raised. Most of our museums in Ireland are staffed by fewer than ten paid employees. I have the relevant figures, which are set out in one of the documents I circulated when we forwarded our presentation. More than 40% of museums and very dependent on voluntary and unpaid labour and 16.7% of museums have no paid employees, relying entirely on volunteers to run their museums. The second part of the survey examined funding and fundraising support. Unfortunately, many museums will not be able to apply for many of the initiatives, which have been of great benefit in recent years in particular, because of capacity issues and also long-term considerations. For example, when there is an initiative such as touring exhibition initiative, which realistically a museum will have to propose and present within a series of six months or less at times, such an initiative will not work for some of the smaller museums. Another major issue for the sector was storage and building space. That comes down to examining initiatives and resources that will be provided to some of the smaller museums, in particular, which can focus on research, conservation, collection care and consolidating the collections they have. That would be a very important step forward in supporting those smaller museums.