Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Partisanship is so visceral in some that they cannot hear or understand it.

On agency rationalisation, the Government does not want to do damage to any agency that is important. On the merger of the National Archives and Irish Manuscripts Commission into the National Library, in order to achieve the greatest possible savings and efficiencies, it was decided that these rationalisation measures would be best implemented by deploying the existing National Archives governance model to the National Library and the National Museum. This will be put into effect on an administrative basis pending enactment of enabling legislation. The idea is to get the best synergies we have. Anything we do in the area of change can be undone if it is not working. It is hard work to bring agencies together. There is a view that if we keep our heads down, they will not come at us. We need to get those synergies and revitalisation. The overall savings in this process are small. As I indicated in the published programme last year, it would only come to ¤20 million.