Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of questions. As a former history teacher, I will defend how we teach history. The issue is how we value it rather than the teaching. Most teachers are genuinely enthusiastic about it and often the issue is about the way the curriculum and timetable are set out. If one is teaching history first thing on a Monday morning or last thing on a Friday, it is very difficult to motivate students. Teachers sometimes do not have the resources to visit sites, which is one of the constraints and the reason sometimes students visit sites only when they are in transition year. In some cases they have not studied the subject for their junior certificate or have been in the classroom but did not take part in it and have no intention of taking it as a subject in the leaving certificate. Teachers try to motivate them but sometimes the subjects have been already decided on by the mother and father. Some subjects are not valued as much as others. That is part of the reason history is not a compulsory subject.

I have a number of questions but I will not ask all of them. One of the ideas behind bringing the witnesses here today is to ask them to lay out the challenges for us so we can pass them on to the Department on behalf of the witnesses and the people who have elected us. We will try to be the conduit for the witnesses in overcoming the issues they have.

My father was in the National Museum for too long. He escaped. He took early retirement because of bureaucracy. He continues working to this day. At the time, things were a lot worse in the National Museum in terms of our collection and how we kept some material. He said, even at that time, material went missing from the national collection. He cannot prove it because there was not a full record. There are 4 million pieces in the collection and 17,000 will be in one production soon. It is welcome in particular for people who are students. It is true for all museums. Digitisation means people do not have to visit museums to look at items. More and more often people are using computers to view collections and then they visit and see them in situ. Is it a big challenge to get material on site for the National Museum and for smaller museums?

During the run-up to the centenary events of 1916, I was involved with the Richmond Barracks projects. I was on the board. One of the projects we managed to encourage Dublin City Council to do was a full-day event where the library service encouraged local people to bring their heirlooms. They scanned them if that was possible and photographed and recorded them. They did not want to add to the collection because they were not in a position to purchase or guarantee an object but at least they know what is around locally as a result. It was a very useful event and was hugely oversubscribed. Families wanted there to be a record if, God forbid, there was a fire and the object was destroyed. I encourage people to do the same when they come to me with materials such as old election posters or, in one case, every communication written on Rizla paper from a H-Block prisoner to his mother. It is still in a plastic bag in the attic despite me requesting them to scan them. I do not want to read them. I do not care what is in them but they could be there for future generations of his family. I try to encourage people but there is a fear, which we discussed with a group last week, that when a person gives material to a collection it is the last the person will see of it. I ask the witnesses consider that issue.

With regard to the point made by Senator Warfield, we have material that in this politically correct era should not be on display in Ireland and should be repatriated. It would be a huge loss to our national collections if we were to repatriate everything of dubious background. For instance, we have mummies. Logically, mummies should not be in a museum. We should not be staring at bodies of any type in a museum. To where do we send them? Who is the family? Perhaps we should look at creating faithful copies. Sometimes that is what one sees in a museum because of the dangers of light and everything else so the original is kept in a more secure place. More and more, it is possible for that to be done. Rather than sharing with or loaning to local museums, the national collection should replicate objects. I do not know how many copies of the Sam Maguire cup are floating around but I definitely do not think the real one gets traipsed around every GAA club in Dublin or Kerry when the team wins. I understand it is costly.

One of the issues that was mentioned concerned Roger Casement. The British hold a lot of material that does not belong to them. When Roger Casement was arrested, they took a big case that belonged to him and kept it. It was not used. That includes the diaries, which belong to the Casement family. They were not used in the court case. They are not legal documents. There is much material like that. Of late, the English have been very good at giving permanent loans. The former mayor of Dublin, Críona Ní Dhálaigh asked for the Fianna Éireann flag from the national collection in England and the ambassador here managed to secure it on permanent loan. It is in the museum under City Hall. That type of collaboration occurs and there should be much more of it so material that belongs in an Irish collection is in an Irish collection.

Some of my questions are for the representatives of the smaller museums in particular. I have discouraged some groups around the country from setting up museums. Sometimes they clash with me. I discourage it on the basis that they need staff, a building, insurance and security. Rather than creating a new museum, it might be more appropriate to mark a site and encourage the local museum, local council museum or the National Museum to have a specific collection. Do the witnesses agree? There are costs associated and they are increasing as we protect material. Restoration costs are also high. I was at the museum when the decade of centenaries was being discussed before this and the last Government was in office. I am the longest serving member of the decades of commemorations committee since 2005. I have been around too long. I was there when they were discussing the Asgard and the huge costs associated. It is one of the projects on which I must congratulate the museum. As an exhibition I could not envisage it but it works.

They are probably the only questions I have for now. I do not understand why the State does not invest a lot more in our museums and cultural institutions, especially national and local ones where there is no entry charge. It is commented upon by most tourists when they are told entry to these institutions is free.

In other countries, one has to pay a sometimes substantial amount to visit national collections. The State does not invest to the degree it should, given how central our museums and cultural institutions are to our tourism, apart from how important they are to us. This committee, from what I have heard since I became Chairman, has enthusiastic supporters of increasing funding for cultural institutions. If there were any questions in my ramblings, the witnesses can address them.