Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak about something serious, and I am sure the Minister, Deputy Harris, and his Department are also concerned about it. It is very disappointing that as we mark Science Week, in the same week we must ask Government the current situation regarding the Science Gallery in Dublin. It would be a huge blow to the city, to the arts and science to lose the Science Gallery on Pearse Street, which at the moment looks set to close in February. There has been huge public support, with people sharing their stories online. The gallery reopened on 22 October and it is featuring its 50th free exhibition, called "Bias: Built this Way", which interrogates fairness, the ethics of artificial intelligence, AI, machine learning and data processing in humans and algorithms. I suggest that in the month when Facebook launches its metaverse, and apparently we are all now in the meta, the importance of such exhibitions, which is the type of work that should be happening, shows why we need the Science Gallery. Maybe some of us have never been or have only been to the café or to events which took place there, such as an excellent event on the global response to HIV. That event explored the experience of patients, clinicians and researchers, and challenged the perceptions of what it means to live with HIV. While some of us perhaps have not been to it, three million visitors have been to the Science Gallery on Pearse Street since it opened in 2008 as a new space to ignite curiosity and discovery, where science and arts collide.

Creativity is acknowledged as an economic driver, an essential input into business, the economy and social policy, essential for understanding and thriving in a new economy. The Science Gallery was established because of a lack of a forum in Ireland for public engagement with the issues posed by emerging technologies and cutting edge research. As I said already, this work is more important than ever. We have not even managed to get a grip on the multitude of issues presented to us by the screen, let alone a metaverse which Facebook is pumping double the amount of money into than it puts into users' safety on its platforms.

RTE.ie had a really good piece by Diane Tangney asking why the existence of the Science Gallery is under threat when science and creativity are essential to our culture and society. She said:

Science and creativity are central to our culture, our society and policy-making, so why then is the existence of Science Gallery under threat? The effects of the global pandemic may have had a hand in the decision to close the space but, stop right there, surely the global pandemic demonstrated the potential for science and technology to work together to protect life on earth?

Surely, the need for art and science to imagine new solutions to the world's grand challenges is now more potent and obvious than ever before. Surely, Ireland with its visionaries and globally-influencing technology companies can come together to save Science Gallery?

She also quoted President Higgins from 2014. I wish to read that quote into the Oireachtas record:

Irish creativity is a creativity that is not confined to the arts but has also had a significant impact on the world of science and on the shaping of the technological age that we live in today.

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That record of original thinking and creative achievement is a wonderful intellectual resource on which we must continue to build.

The Minister, Deputy Harris, has mentioned he wants to see the Science Gallery on Pearse Street remain open. Before he left here he mentioned that he is working to that end. I wonder can the Minister inform us is his Department leading the talks on the part of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, which provides about €280,000 a year. I read that the talks have been positive but it has been about ten days since I have heard anything. What position is Trinity College taking? Had it asked for an increase in funding on top of the €280,000 that is provided annually? Had it asked for an increase in advance of the announcement of this closure? An announcement such as that reminds me of Lyric FM, where it was announced it was just going to close and then everybody had to scramble to figure out why. It just seems as though the area of the arts is somewhat disposable when threatened with closure and we all scramble and figure out how to save it. Ultimately, do we see the Science Gallery being saved? It must be saved.