Mr. Rónán Swan:

One issue I wish to highlight is the amazing resource that is the historic environment map viewer available from the National Monuments Service onarchaeology.ie. These monuments are already on the Record of Monuments and Places, RMP, etc., and are in the public domain. In TII we are doing quite a bit of work making our information available on digital heritage collections. In terms of bringing the past to life and making it accessible to people, there are many opportunities we can use online, including social media, story maps and videos. One interesting area, which we have been discussing with the National Monuments Service, is our greenway projects, through which we bring people through the landscape, and bringing people towards monuments and places of interest. Last year we were involved in the Athlone cycleway. Its route is right beside Athlone Abbey. It is great route for cyclists to go through. It is opening up and giving many people the option to engage with the past in a way they perhaps have not done before.

The original National Monuments Advisory Council was established when there was no professional National Monuments Service in place. The committee may, in its deliberations, wish to look at how the former advisory council worked originally and, after that, how it worked with the National Monuments Service and, later, with the Heritage Council that replaced it.