Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very welcome. I am pleased we are having such a debate which affords us an opportunity to explore the issues in full. I very much welcome the update the Minister provided, in particular the update on the national cultural policy. I echo Senator Bacik’s question. I accept the Minister does not have an opportunity to respond to us today as she has had her speaking turn, but it would be great if she could follow up on the matter.

I thank the Minister for the e-mail she sent to Members with an invitation to participate in the local authority workshops as part of Ireland 2016. I suggest that the Minister would send it to some national organisations also. I sent it to one or two myself, as they will then filter it down to their local level. I got welcome feedback to the e-mail and I suspect the information on the initiative has not reached as far as it should. In order to increase local participation, contact can be made with national organisations who can pass on the information at branch level. My background is youth work and children in youth organisations. They certainly want to play a role in the commemorations.

In terms of Senator Mac Conghail’s contribution, I very much heard his awareness of the economic recession. At times, the position we have taken in the Seanad have made it very clear that we understand it. I heard him speak about governance, accountability, transparency and the importance of the arms-length principle. That is very much what is at stake in this regard.

I was disappointed when I saw the motion. Three national cultural institutions were mentioned. It was almost like a parent with eight children identifying three as favourites. Why pick those? I thought perhaps the others would be addressed in the recommendations but they only referred to the National Library of Ireland. To be honest, there was some confusion. I will declare, as I have done previously in the House, that I have a soft spot for the National Archives because I am very much involved with working there, and with the National Library of Ireland because of my personal interest in genealogy.I do not understand why the National Archives, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the National Concert Hall, the Chester Beatty Library and the Crawford Art Gallery are not included in the motion. They have all had to face cuts for one reason or another.

I have a keen interest in family history and I welcome what the Minister said about the development on Bishop Street. It is excellent to hear. I am all too well aware of the importance of keeping our archives and heritage. The National Archives are legally charged under the National Archives Act 1986. The significance and importance of its function in the interests of democracy, transparency, truth and justice cannot be understated. To share a personal experience about truth and the importance of having factual material, because very often we can distort history as we go forward, from my experience of researching my family history I knew the story of how my great aunt fled Ireland with her then two year old child in 1929, abandoning her husband and ancestral home in County Clare. One can imagine how the story read to me. By researching at the National Archives I found in the District Court records how my great aunt tried on several occasions to seek the court's protection from her husband who assaulted and abused her. When she could not get a remedy from the court she was left with no alternative but to escape to England. When I shared this with her daughter, who is now in her 80s, I cannot put a price on the relief, understanding and closure these archive records provided.

To understand and interpret our history appropriately we need to ensure archive material is properly stored and easily accessed. The motion speaks about digitisation. I attended the excellent Heritage Council briefing today and I support everything Senator Bacik said on it. In 2013 we spent €5.9 million on the entire operations of the National Library of Ireland. The Dutch spend €5 billion annually simply to store the digital version of their national library. They invest in this because they have put a price on it. In Ireland there is a belief that we value our cultural heritage, but we need to show we can invest in it. At the very least we should develop plans so that as money comes onstream everybody knows where it is going, where we will invest it and what is the policy for investing in our institutions.

I mention ARIADNE in regard to archaeology, which is very interesting given the discovery programme in Ireland. It works at EU level, developing a singular infrastructure for the storage of archaeology material. If we have too many pilot projects the data set and archiving programme become obsolete. We need to have this at European level. My difficulty is that Ireland has not invested a cent in this and may end up being excluded from a European project on storing archaeology data. Ireland is great at promotion. When I first brought my husband to Ireland I brought him to Newgrange and he was wowed with what we have on our doorstep. We do not fully appreciate it. People travel to Italy to see sites. We are not storing or putting infrastructure in place. We must ensure whatever data storage infrastructure is put in place, whether for archives or archaeology, is at a level at which we can network and use it, and that as systems update we can be part of it.