Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Members of the culture committee visited Mayo and Roscommon last week as part of our work on local and regional museums. We were in Straide to see the Michael Davitt museum and Strokestown House and famine museum. We also saw the Jackie Clarke collection in Ballina. We all know these spaces can be drivers for tourism, education and international and national engagement, as well as research. I encourage Members to get in touch with the committee if they have ideas about our local and regional museums. Some of the issues concern greater support for local authority arts officers and heritage officers and funding for people on the ground rather than just capital projects. For example, it is about allowing people to go overseas to meet people from organisations where there may be engagement. We should also return Heritage Council funding to pre-recession levels. The committee will shortly complete its work on local and regional museums and I encourage people to have a look at the landscape locally and get in touch with the committee or me with ideas on that report and recommendations.