Sir, – Minister for Arts Jimmy Deenihan’s defence of his proposed emasculation of the National Library and the National Museum (Opinion, December 3rd) is an almost comical example of Orwellian doublethink.
He describes as “reforms” a package of measures which, in fact, would undo the very real reforms effected by the Cultural Institutions Act 1997. That act freed the library and the museum from the control of the civil service in which they had been shamefully neglected for decades. Mr Deenihan now wishes to return them to that failed administrative structure, and to abolish the boards and advisory committees which guarantee their integrity as centres of scholarly pursuit.
He claims that abolishing these boards and committees will save “some €350,000 per annum based on 2011 figures”, but this is misleading. The members of the boards and committees have agreed to serve on a pro bono basis, so the savings in question have already been realised.
Mr Deenihan needs a better justification than that for abolishing the boards. – Yours, etc,