Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I am surprised by the Minister's reply because he appears to suggest these measures were taken in the interests of the institutions in question and to improve the quality of the product provided to members of the public. The idea for these measures emanated from the Department of Finance and is purely a money saving exercise. Why has a cost analysis not been done to identify how much money will be saved? While I am fully in favour of eliminating quangos, none of the institutions under discussion is a quango. They are the anchor institutions of Irish culture with traditions dating back to the 18th century.

To decide on the back of an envelope whether to get rid of some or merge others and then suggest that this will somehow improve matters while at the same time saying it is a good idea to invest in cultural institutions does not make sense. How is that consistent with the Minister's capital budget for the cultural institutions being decreased by 48%?

Notwithstanding what might have to happen in the Crawford Gallery in Cork, how does the Minister intend, for instance, in the case of organisations such as the National Archives and the National Library to bring them together and somehow assume they are going to be more efficient as a result? Is there to be a new building and are they to come together on a single site? Is that the way the efficiencies and improvements are to be achieved? Does the Minister agree that these are not bloated organisations, which are overspending or overstaffed? Nothing could be further from the truth. How are the savings to be made?

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