Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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183. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will provide details of her engagements with the Minister for Foreign Affairs concerning negotiations with governments of other States to ensure the return of antiquities and historical objects held in museums, libraries, and other cultural institutions which originated from this country. [54104/22]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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While I have not had any direct engagements with the Minister for Foreign Affairs regarding the return of antiquities or historical objects originating from Ireland, senior officials in my Department meet regularly with their counterparts in the Department of Foreign Affairs on a wide agenda of cultural matters of mutual interest. In terms of the issue in question, this is a matter of which I am well aware and it represents an area that our National Cultural Institutions are closely engaged with.

Increasingly in recent decades, the National Cultural Institutions' curatorial responsibilities have required a consideration of the ethical implications and the evolving sensitivities regarding the acquisition and exhibition of historic artefacts. The exploitation of specific communities or the expropriation of their cultural artefacts is a profound concern, whether it occurred in the past or in more recent times.

The National Monuments Act 1930 to 2014 and the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997 provides for the licensing of exporting Irish historic artefacts. The National Museum of Ireland (NMI) actively follows up on reports of unlicensed export of archaeological objects from the State, on behalf of the State, and has been involved in the successful retrieval of such material. Important collections of archaeological objects, recovered through unlicensed metal detecting and subsequently illicitly exported from the jurisdiction, have been retrieved by the NMI working in cooperation with law enforcement agencies.

Prior to the enactment of the relevant legislation, and as is the case in many countries, objects from Ireland were often legitimately acquired by antiquarian collectors and ultimately entered the collections of other museums through onward sale or donation. This type of activity dates from a time which predates the current legislation which regulates the discovery, possession and sale of archaeological objects.

Many Irish objects that belong to collections in overseas museums have been loaned to museums in Ireland for specific exhibitions. The NMI maintains close links with museums that hold Irish artefacts and has often borrowed such material for exhibitions. The institutions collaborate and share research and, in many cases, share the NMI's ethos, that is to care for, protect, and to research and disseminate knowledge in relation to collections that are in its care.

Two recent examples are objects on long-term renewable loan to the NMI, currently on display in the Treasury exhibition at the NMI in Kildare Street:

- the house-shaped shrine from the River Shannon at Keeloge Ford, in the Collection of the National Museums of Scotland

- the Aghadoe Crozier, found in Co. Kerry but in the collection of the Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm.