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

I thank Deputy Burton for raising this. I know the Deputy has the written reply to her question. I understand that the auction in London is about to conclude, or has just concluded, in respect of the W.B. Yeats collection. The Deputy will appreciate that I have been constrained in what I could say up until now as it is the long-standing policy of the State not to comment one way or another on items that may be coming up for auction.

I am now happy to confirm that I was able to support the National Library of Ireland and the National Museum of Ireland in acquiring a number of items in advance of the auction in London today. In July this year I agreed to provide funding of up to €500,000 to the National Library of Ireland to assist in the acquisition of more than 500 letters between W.B. Yeats and his wife, George Yeats. These letters were withdrawn from auction as a result.

I also provided €150,000 to the National Museum of Ireland to assist in the acquisition of such items that the National Museum of Ireland deemed appropriate, including furniture and other artifacts. This support is in addition to the €518,000 I provided in December 2016 to the National Library of Ireland to assist in the purchase of ten signed letters from James Joyce to W.B. Yeats, the Dream Diary of W.B. Yeats's wife George and the Yeats family library.

Alongside these purchases the National Library of Ireland will also announce the forthcoming donation by the Yeats family of the remaining Yeats family archive and items that are currently on loan to the National Library of Ireland for its W.B. Yeats exhibition. These donations will be made under section 1003 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997. This refers to the tax relief available for donors of important national heritage items to the Irish national collections. The donation by the family in 2016 of W.B. Yeats's Nobel prize medal and certificate, along with a further donation of material that is currently being finalised, will have a total value of almost €2.5 million. It will mean that over the last few years the State has acquired material from the Yeats family collection amounting to a total of more than €4 million.

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