Sir, – So we can afford to give a hugely wealthy film production company free use of a State asset, namely an Air Corps helicopter, for the filming of Star Wars on Skellig Michael ("Star Wars given free use of Defence Forces resources", June 16th).
The usual justification for such Government largesse is that it will attract tourists to Ireland. To see what? Well, not the outstanding ethnographic collection of the National Museum for example, as it can’t afford to display it, nor the closed George Bernard Shaw Museum, and probably not the archives of the Jewish Museum for much longer, and most definitely not a Rubens at Russborough House. It is time for the Minister for the Arts Heather Humphreys to start typing some invoices and fully realise the value of our cultural capital, as I am sure Disney’s accountants do. – Yours, etc,
ERICA DEVINE,
Sandycove,
Co Dublin.