Sir, – In a statement issued on October 31st which has so far received little press attention, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin announced the Government’s decision to abolish the board of the National Library of Ireland and return the library to within the civil service structure in which it languished before the coming into effect of the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997. I write, as a member of the statutory Readers Advisory Committee of the Library, to protest against this retrograde step.
When the National Cultural Institutions Act was being debated in the Seanad in 1996, it was described by the then Minister for Arts, Michael D Higgins (now, of course, our President), as representing “one of the most significant legislative initiatives, in cultural heritage terms, that the Irish State has undertaken since its foundation”. Its aim, according to Mr Higgins, was “to establish a modern legislative structure within which our major cultural institutions [including the National Library] could be enabled to thrive”.
He went on to say that “autonomy provided by means of statutorily established boards will give these institutions greater discretion and accountability over the handling of budgets; some flexibility over personnel resources; stronger powers to develop policies on acquisitions, the holding of exhibitions and integrating these important institutions into the national culture”.
I believe the National Library of Ireland, under the two boards which have served since the 1997 Act was brought into effect in 2005, has fulfilled the promise of which Mr Higgins spoke. The progress which the library has made in these years is in marked contrast to the preceding decades of under-resourcing, inactivity and neglect when the library was part of the civil service structure, most notoriously in the hands – more accurately, at the mercy – of successive ministers for education.
To return the library to that earlier, failed administrative framework is the greatest folly. It will exacerbate the immense difficulties which the library is already facing with very severe, indeed disproportionate, cutbacks in budgets and staffing. The National Library of Ireland is the worst resourced national library in Europe and is, in some respects, less well resourced than some of our county libraries.
How can any Government which professes to value our cultural heritage defend such deplorable circumstances? The National Library is the key repository for the materials required for research into our past and our cultural heritage. The oversight of the library’s activities by a board, accountable to but independent of the Government, guarantees that priority is given to the public interest in facilitating such research and that issues of vital importance to scholars and others concerned with the development of an understanding of our culture and history are not lost in bureaucratic obfuscation or short-term political agendas.
The board is there to protect this public interest, and the library as an institution and the quality of the service it provides will be greatly weakened by its abolition.
Future generations will curse this Government for compounding the errors of their predecessors by what is, in effect, an act of gross cultural sabotage, perpetrated – and what an irony this is – in the name of “balancing the books”.
Incidentally, it is not at all clear how savings are to be realised by this measure as I understand the board had agreed to serve on a pro bono basis. Certainly, the purported savings have not been spelt out by the Government.
Edmund Burke wrote that “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”, and it is in this spirit that I feel it necessary to highlight the damage that is being done to the National Library – an institution which, I believe, is deeply valued by the people of Ireland. – Yours, etc,