I indicated yesterday that I intended to structure my comments on the general problem of the conservation of our architectural heritage under seven headings, following the seven headings used by Professor Frank Mitchell in his presidential address to the Royal Irish Academy on Planning for Irish Archaeology in the Eighties. I had dealt with the question of recording, congratulating the Minister on the fact that some material had appeared, acknowledging that there has been an increase in rapidity but anxious that this was at the expense of an element of superficiality. I want to make it quite clear that when I talk about these inventories and these records as being superficial, I am not in any sense attacking the professional merit of these works, but rather their scope.
At the time I moved the adjournment I was talking about the second of the functions that are necessary, that of protection. I indicated that we can categorise this into protection of monuments above the ground, protection of monuments below the ground and protection of monuments below water. The question of protection of monuments above the ground is really a question of reinforcing what is there in the present code of 1930 and 1954. This has been done to some degree in the present Bill. I welcome very much the new measures in the Bill dealing with the question of protection of monuments underground, artefacts and treasure troves which are underground and also the protection of underwater wrecks. I do not think there is any need to discuss either of these in any great detail. There may well be discussion on Committee Stage — I am sure there will be — in regard to both of them.
In regard to the question of the use of electronic devices for metal detecting there is some concern. Concern has been expressed in regard to the position of genuine geophysical exploration for the purpose of determining minerals and oils. I would like to ask the Minister specifically whether a special licence will be needed from her Department or whether the general licence issued by the Department of Energy will protect persons using electronic methods for the determination of metal deposits and of oil. The suggestion has been made that if the Bill, which now reads "metal and artefacts", referred to "metal artefacts" it would certainly give more protection to those who are engaged in genuine mineral exploration without any loss in regard to the prevention of treasure hunting. I would be glad if the Minister could look at that point between now and Committee Stage. It may well be that the wording in the Bill is necessary for other reasons. If so, we would like to hear these reasons on Committee Stage.
In regard to the question of protection of underwater wrecks, this is most welcome. It is most welcome because it is so late. Indeed this is one of the areas on which action could well have been taken long ago. We have been guilty of national irresponsibility in our failure before this date to take protection in regard to the extremely rich treasures which lie around our shore. It was ironic that one of the classical cases of the recovery of treasure from one of the ships of the Spanish Armada, which went down in Lough Foyle, was done by the Derry Sub-Aqua Club, done under controlled conditions, done in the way in which we would all like to see this work done. This wreck which lies within our territorial waters has been thoroughly explored by the Derry Sub-Aqua Club. Artefacts of great value, not only of intrinsic value, were recovered but it was discovered from the nature of the artefacts that this particular ship was a supply ship. It was a very special type of Armada vessel, one which was intended to support the land operation and gave a great deal of information about the organisation of the Armada itself. Those artefacts have been saved.
One could say that they have been saved for Ireland but they have not been saved for the State over which the writ of this Oireachtas runs for the moment. They have been preserved in Northern Ireland and in this sense the Irish responsibility in regard to this very valuable treasure has been met, but here was a case where we should have acted ourselves. This material was so valuable that it is something whose presence in our National Museum would have filled a gap in our own national collection.
There are many other wrecks of the Armada vessels around our coast. The science of underwater archaeology has advanced greatly in recent years. I would suggest to the Minister that consideration might be given by her Department in collaboration with the Royal Irish Academy to the commencement of a study of this question. Studies do not cost very much and it might be possible, to mount a study on the manner in which modern scientific techniques on underwater archaeology could be applied to the particular case of the ships of the Spanish Armada. I am not asking that a huge salvage operation be mounted but I am asking that a feasibility study be made.
The expertise is there. I suggest working through the Royal Irish Academy, not because I am a member of that Academy pushing its case, but it is the meeting place of all our archaeologists. It is where the archaeologists from all our institutions, both the universities and the museum, meet together, but the Academy is more than that because the Academy has representatives of the other sciences. The important thing in regard to a venture like this would be to make the full use of modern science and technology.
Some ten years ago or so the Royal Society of London and the British Academy came together in a symposium on the use of physics in regard to archaeology, and it was a most successful operation. We have the advantage that our Academy, unlike the position in Britain, is not split between science and humanities so you have within the one body the scientific expertise and the humanities experience. If such a feasibility study were started, whether done directly by the Academy with assistance and slight financial support from the Office of Public Works and representation on the working group from the Office of Public Works, we could in such a feasibility study do useful work which can be done now so that, as I said before, when the time comes when money is available for such work we will be able to go ahead, because we have already lost so much time. As the Minister well knows, these wrecks are open to the plunderers today and this must be corrected.
Senator Mullooly referred to the question of the legal ownership of wrecks and mentioned that perhaps 100 years was rather long. I was very glad to note from the report of the Council of Europe in regard to this question that in Spanish and Portuguese law the period is relatively short that, in fact, the lapse of ownership in a wreck in Spanish and Portuguese law is more clearly defined than in most other countries of Europe. So I do not think there would be undue claims from the Spanish Government in regard to the Armada wrecks and I think we may consider that in this particular case the State's interest in ownership and custody will not be contested. This is an area on which we should move.
There is one point on excavation I must not forget. I probably would forget it because I think it is something for which the Minister carries no personal responsibility, but I could not talk about excavation without referring to the disastrous reduction in the appropriation that was made for excavation in the current year. I am conscious that the decisions were made before the present Minister was responsible. I hope that the interest and enthusiasm she has shown for the subject we are discussing today will mean, in fact, that there is no repetition of that and that at the very least the amounts provided for excavation under the Office of Public Works Vote will be restored to the very meagre level at which it has been during the past few years.
Excavation is important for a number of reasons. There is excavation which is for research purposes which is largely the interest of the professional archaeologist but when we are talking as we are talking in this Bill about questions of urgency — I want to stress continually the questions of urgency in regard to this Bill — it is not academic excavation that is so important as rescue excavation. Here we have had an indifferent record. We must pay tribute to what is being done in regard to rescue in Dublin Castle at the moment, but that seems to absorb all the energies and all the resources of the Office of Public Works at the moment. Again, I urge the Minister in this regard that there should be a plan to be implemented gradually in regard to the question of rescue excavation. We need here a programme because rescue excavation is not simple. We need to have an organisation consisting of as many units as possible in order to carry out the long term excavation of known sites, but that is not the whole of the story. There is also the necessity to have provision for a fire brigade operation in regard to rescue excavation. We all know of cases where at the beginning of a building operation, when the foundations are being excavated, there is the unexpected discovery of archaeological remains. Therefore, any plan for a rescue operation cannot merely be concerned with saying that we have so many units which can be sent out to carry out the rescue operations which we know are going to come within the next two or three years, but we need this emergency provision as well.
The next part of what has to be done in regard to our archaeological heritage is the question of its thorough examination. Here again the lack of resources has hampered those responsible — largely in our National Museum — in carrying out this particular work. Here again it will be necessary to have a plan for the thorough examination of material in situ, the thorough examination of artefacts and their preservation, dating and so on so that we can add to the knowledge of our heritage.
The same remarks apply also to the question of conservation. The amount of work which can be done in conservation by our National Museum is meagre indeed, and we are lucky that we have the backing of the British Museum who have been active in the conservation and the restoration of many of our more important finds. We are falling well behind what might be expected. For example, we would not expect provision to be made in this country for conservation of archaeological remains on anything like the scale of the British Museum but perhaps we should look north to Belfast and ask ourselves how do we compare with what is being done in the Ulster Museum. Here we have an appropriate yardstick. What do we find when we make this comparison? We find that some years ago the Ulster Museum was given the space — about 6,000 square feet — the staff and the full equipment necessary for doing all the most intricate work of conservation and restoration.
In drawing up a plan for archaeology in Ireland — not in the eighties as Professor Frank Mitchell said, because that time is lost — but for the nineties, there must be a thorough plan in this regard. Even when all of this has been done, when the excavation, examination and the conservation are complete, there remains the always laborious work of documentation and publication. Documentation is particularly important and Senator Mullooly, when speaking last night, mentioned the excellent work that is being done by local museums throughout the country. It is of great importance that there should be a full documentation of these, that there should be a full national documentation centre, presumably in our National Museum, in which all of the information, about what arises in the records, what is being excavated and what may still be in private collections, can be stored.
Our National Museum has no catalogue. The last full catalogue that was made of the Irish treasures, as far as I know, was that made by Sir William Wilde in 1857. I am talking of a catalogue in the sense of an illustrated catalogue which is the appropriate type of catalogue for such materials. We have had partial catalogues. The publication of the National Treasures of Ireland which formed a catalogue for the special exhibition which was shown in many countries and shown here in our own museum showing some of the treasures of the National Museum, Trinity College, Dublin, and of the Royal Irish Academy was indeed an excellent volume, but we need something more than this. In fact, I would suggest that in planning for archaeology and planning for how we should handle our national heritage in the nineties in regard to this ancient material, we need modern documentation.
In other words, it is no longer a question of an illustrated book of the type produced by Sir William Wilde in the 19th century, what we need is a computerised information base in which the information on all that is excavated, all that is exhibited in the National Museum and in local museums and also material of key Irish interest which is available in museums all over the world, all of these should be gathered together in a single documentation centre. To organise and in particular to search such a documentation system means that it would have to be a computerised system. Again, I am not suggesting that such a system be set up next year or the year after. First, the thinking of those responsible for policy should turn in this direction and feasibility studies can be made. I am asking for a plan and unless we have a plan in this regard, we will be failing in our national duty.
There is the final question of publication. There are many forms of publication that arise from the discovery and examination of monuments and the discovery of artefacts. Here there has to be a new look. The material that affects our interpretation of our early history and our pre-history has to be made available to scholars and then to the public. There is publication in another sense on which we have been particularly lax. I want to call attention to the meaning of the word "publication". The word "publication" is defined in the dictionary as "to make public". We tend to think, in the age dominated by the printing press, that the only method of publication is to print something on paper and to circulate it. But when we come to the question of the publication of our national heritage, it is more than this. It is to make it available to the public, not only through reading but by making it visible to them in its entirety.
There are many examples in other countries of the use of imagination where archaeological remains have been discovered when buildings are to be built. Imagination has been used in order to leave in place, at their historic lower level, these monuments open to the public and to build above them. What has been done in the city of York is one example. What has been done in Cologne with the Roman remains is another. There are many others throughout Europe. This is publication in a real sense. This is making public this part of our heritage to those who will never read the proceedings of the Society of Antiquities of Ireland or similar literature. It can bring home to them in its fullness what was the nature, what was the reality of life in past ages. In this sense perhaps we would be going back to the function of the stained glass window of the mediaeval cathedral which told the story of the Old and the New Testament to those who were unable to read. This part of a publication is part of what has to be done.
I return finally in summary to saying what I said at the outset that I welcome this Bill for what is in it and I express my disappointment at the fact that it is so limited in scope. As I repeat my main remarks, I am glad to do so in the presence of Deputy John Donnellan who was responsible for a Private Members' Bill in 1980, a National Heritage Bill. I am sure the Cathaoirleach will allow me to repeat in his presence what I said in the opening speech, that that Bill was defeated on a vote in Dáil Éireann on the grounds that something more comprehensive was needed.
What we have today, six years later, is not much more comprehensive than what was in Deputy Donnellan's Private Members' Bill. That Bill provided for the control of sea wrecks. That Bill provided for the control of electronic devices. Thanks be to goodness we now have those in a Bill. We hope this Bill will be rapidly passed. I would like to say a word of congratulations to the Minister of State, Deputy John Donnellan. He was one politician who was alive to these absolutely critical problems before this action was taken. Deputy John Donnellan's Bill was voted down in Dáil Éireann on the basis that what was needed was something more comprehensive. I have indicated in my speech that of course something more comprehensive was needed, but that is no reason not to deal with the present crisis. Let us welcome what is here in the Bill. Let us welcome it for what it can do, but let us realise that it is only crisis management and that much more must be done.
In regard to the operation of the Bill, I noted that the Minister of State in her speech said she hoped that more attention would be paid to the new Historical Monuments Advisory Committee than to the old National Monuments Advisory Committee. May I echo that? It will not be difficult to pay more attention. I believe that one of our weaknesses under the old code was that the advice of that advisory committee was undervalued. I sincerely trust that the determination of the Minister of State that the new advisory committee will be used effectively, will be listened to, will be carried through. The new advisory committee which is being set up should be able to help greatly in giving advice on the points I have raised about feasibility studies in regard to the application of science to under water archaeology; on the question of the planning of a proper excavation programme, both a long term and a rescue programme and in regard to many other matters.
There is one comment I would like to make and that is that I believe in regard to the five extra members that the Minister should take great care to balance this committee. The structure under the section at the moment in regard to the new committee is that it contains one representative from each of a number of academic bodies. The tendency of every one of those academic bodies — Trinity College, University College, Dublin, University College, Cork and University College, Galway — will be to appoint as their representative their professor of archaeology. This is the inevitable way in which the academic council will make these appointments. In making the five additional appointments, the Minister should be careful to look beyond the archaeologists themselves. The architects also have a direct nomination.
It has been found in other countries that in modern archaeology there are a great number of problems, not only the scientific problems, the type I have already mentioned. Among the extra five there should be a scientist and also there is a place for my own discipline of civil engineering. It has been found here that the question both of the original structural design and the present structural safety of ancient monuments is looming larger and larger particularly in cases where remains of ancient works are left open to public view. There is a real role for this advisory committee. In so far as it is possible, this committee should be widely based. There will, of course, be a majority of archaeologists on it. As we go into the nineties, if we are to preserve our heritage in a manner worthy of handing on that heritage to the next century, then it is not a job for archaeologists alone.
I welcome the Bill. I welcome the section controlling underseas wrecks. I welcome the section on electronic devices. I welcome the other minor amendments and I do hope that the advisory committee plays a larger role. In parenthesis may I say that the Minister for Finance is to be congratulated on reconstituting the old committee and at the same time condemned for the fact that he neglected to perform that statutory function for such a long time. The Minister of State has said in regard to the present committee that half of its membership will retire so it will have a continuity. The old National Monuments Advisory Committee did not have a continuity. It was not because all its members went out of office on the same day. It was because the Minister responsible did not appoint a new committee. The Minister did not carry out his statutory duty to do this. I hope that such treatment of an advisory committee is not repeated under the present Act.
I hope the reduction which was made in the amount available for excavation which is so essential in the training of the young archaeologists is not repeated and I hope it will not be too long until the Minister can report to us, not necessarily in the form of legislation but possibly in the form of a report, that plans have been drawn up and feasibility studies have been made so that we, in our time, can rival what of our predecessors of the 19th century who under much more difficult circumstance with much less knowledge of what was involved, much less technique available to them, managed to preserve our heritage. Our record since we became a State in preserving our national heritage has not been a good one. It can hardly get worse. I am confident it will improve but I do hope that improvement will be of such a significance that we can all be proud of it.