Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is my intention to develop and publish an updated national heritage plan. I am looking at how best to do this. The plan has a number of different components and a lot of work has gone into it, including the national landscape strategy, the peatlands strategy and the national biodiversity plan. I will consult stakeholders and I want to work very closely with the Heritage Council in terms of this plan.

Deputy Smyth mentioned investment in our cultural institutions. The investment in the National Gallery is in the order of €33 million. The historic Dargan and Milltown wings of the gallery are near completion and it is hoped that they will be opened to the public in early 2017. I also mentioned the National Library and omitted to say that I visited the library to see its storage facilities. The building goes back to the 19th century and badly needs investment. This is phase one of that investment where we were able to provide it with €10 million to get it started because the National Library does tremendous work. It is a tremendous asset in terms of our cultural institutions along with the National Museum, including the museum here on Kildare Street, the museum at Collins Barracks and the Museum of Country Life in Mayo. Huge numbers of people visit those cultural institutions and the number continues to grow. Some people forget they are all free of charge. They are tremendous assets.

The one thing I want our cultural institutions to do is to start loaning material to local museums. There is a magnificent local museum in Ballyjamesduff in County Cavan. I know the tremendous work that has been done there. Last year, I increased the budget for the loaning of items to local museums because it is important that cultural institutions based in Dublin share their material with rural Ireland.

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