Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael)

According to the Croke Park agreement, we can reach our target and this is very much tied into the EU-IMF deal, which as the Deputy knows was put in place by his party's Government and before our time. I am in regular contact with the cultural institutions and realise they could use more staff. Nevertheless, they have not been forced to remove any services which, in fact, have improved with better technology. They have not been forced to reduce opening hours and are in discussions about increasing hours. The intern project, which was included in the jobs strategy, could be of major assistance to the cultural institutions. There are a large number of young graduates who would be delighted to have the experience of working in the cultural institutions through that scheme.

There is a way, therefore, of providing additional human resources for the various cultural institutions that would be of major value, to the actual institutions, obviously, but also to the people involved because of the very important experience they would get by working in our cultural institutions. I reiterate, these institutions are free of charge to tourists which is why we see so many tourists on Kildare Street every day. The institutions are as good as one would find in any part of the world. There is an exhibition in the National Museum at present which I would recommend to anyone. We should all go to it; it is only next door. One can also go next door to the National Library and see an exhibition on Yeats that compares with any exhibition one might see in any part of the world. We should feel very privileged to have these cultural institutions right on the doorstep of this House, although at times people may not visit them.

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