Ms Catherine Heaney:

On that last point on storage, I mentioned in our submission that the National Museum of Ireland's main collection is in the collections research centre in Swords. That houses almost 4 million items. One of the challenges we have is that is a leased building and the lease will end at the end of this decade. This places huge challenges that need to be addressed relatively soon in regard to where those collections will go. Moving collections is no easy feat. Many of the collections in the resource centre are delicate in nature.

Longford and other counties and other institutions face similar challenges around storage. Often we see the answer to the problem as just finding a building or a place but it is much bigger than that. It is about finding somewhere that is safe and accessible and which can be used in different ways by different communities. Everybody connects with their local heritage. We all go into the museum and try to find things from our townland or home county.

We need to have a debate to answer the question and the challenge that face us, and not just the National Museum of Ireland in terms of its storage. Storing items is difficult as some of them are big. We have had a conversation ourselves over the summer about the ending of peat harvesting and turf cutting and all the artefacts that go with that. It is not easy to store a turf cutter, so we have to find different solutions. That is why I flag the issue.

It is an important challenge that faces so many in the culture and heritage sector. It would be wonderful to find a solution that was more than just finding an immediate solution to a problem, one that will offer opportunities to communities, tourism and research.