Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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The arrangements with regard to images of cultural goods and heritage sites is primarily a matter for the relevant institutional body, especially where any commercial use is envisaged.

Where objects are held by the National Cultural Institutions, each Institution has responsibility for putting appropriate arrangements in place, having regard to the necessity to ensure that the conservation requirements for objects are not compromised and to ensure compliance with the Institution's own obligations in areas such as copyright.

In order to assist the Deputy, I can provide examples of some of the arrangements that are in place.

In the National Gallery of Ireland, members of the public may purchase high-quality digital images of the collection, on the Gallery’s Images website nationalgalleryimages.ie, or purchase high-quality reproductions of objects from the collection (in the form of postcards, cards and prints) in the Gallery Shop shop.nationalgallery.ie/

Requests relating to the reproduction of images and/or works that are in copyright will be considered by the Gallery’s Images and Licensing Department. The Gallery also provides high-resolution images of certain objects that are no longer in copyright from its collection, free to download under an Open Data Initiative. This means that members of the public can download (for free and without seeking permission from the Gallery) any image of an object that is labelled as being available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

At the National Museum of Ireland, requests for high-resolution copies of images of items in its collection are given due consideration as to whether the proposed use of the image is suitable. Any proposal for commercial use of NMI’s images is assessed on a case-by-case basis.