Dr. Audrey Whitty:

I will take the question on education first. We have it in our submission paper. It is very close to the heart of the Irish Museums Association. In terms of the expansion of current education in the sector, we would look to arts portals and schemes, in particular to include much museum activity and development of a dedicated platform that links the wider sector of educators, such as history and sciences, into museums, and at enabling and promoting participation, co-creation and engagement in all our museums across the island. A national example of this would be the current Department of Education and Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media's Art in Education portal and the Creative Ireland Creative Communities. If they could be expanded on and given increased funding, that would be hugely significant. Investment in the roll-out of online learning in the classroom by museums through establishing formal links with the Department of Education, particularly its junior cycle for teachers, JCT, co-ordinators for post-primary, particularly at junior certificate level. A very good example of that would be the Arts in Education charter.

What we would look to would be a major evaluation of museum online learning and engagement in terms of the hybrid model going forward. We have already done that through the Irish Museums Association teacher survey, which was museum engagement during and post Covid-19. We would welcome funding to expand on that particular area of evaluation, to assess the resources, such as capacity and access to both programming and collections to better address the needs of all our audiences.

In terms of the national strategy, our director of operations Ms O'Kelly can come in here as well, but we would see that as a major deficit in Ireland at the moment, that is, that we do not have a national strategy for museums unlike many of our European Union counterparts. That would be extremely welcome and could possibly fall under the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media to implement it. Northern Ireland has the Northern Ireland Museums Council but we do not have an equivalent body here in the Republic of Ireland, so it is something that is needed in terms of a national strategy. We would be very keen on that moving forward, if that was possible.