Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I welcome Mr. Shovlin. I am very glad to see he cares about the National Library. I do not imagine he would have been on the board if he did not. It is one of my own favourite places in the country. It is a real national treasure and Mr. Shovlin is quite right that it is under-appreciated.

In his opening statement, Mr. Shovlin refers to the legacy of under-investment. He comes from a strong financial background. The storage and retrieval aspect of the library was drawn to our attention when we visited it some months ago. I was appalled at the risk we are taking with the national collection because of under-investment. I know the possibility of partnering with one of the universities in respect of a combined storage facility is being explored. How would Mr. Shovlin see that going? Would it be a priority area?

We are coming up to a very important commemoration with which the library is going to be strongly involved, and rightly so. At the end of the decade of centenaries we will also be remembering another incident in which we lost a very large collection of irreplaceable material. My question about storage is in that context. I would like to see a higher premium placed on this matter.

In his own personal time, Mr. Shovlin has been involved in a number of areas. How does he see the mixture of business and cultural aspects? Are they mutually beneficial? Only 1% of the collection is conserved to international standards. Is that a priority? I appreciate that there is a juggling act going on. I was very pleased with the digitisation that was done last year and the extent of interest in the parish records. Although I appreciate the work that has been done with the budget that is there, I feel we are under-investing hugely.