A SPECIAL report by the State's spending watchdog on the National Museum of Ireland has identified significant shortcomings in record-keeping and sub-standard storage that may put the national collections at risk of "damage and decay".
The report of Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell, published yesterday, makes a number of serious criticisms of the operations of the national museum, which manages the national collections and runs four public museums, three in Dublin and one in Co Mayo.
The criticisms, some of which the national museum yesterday implied were overly harsh, touch on all areas of museum activities.
Specifically, it found that of the estimated 3.8 million objects, only 911,000 lend themselves to detailed recording and of those, only 30 per cent are electronically recorded. As a result, the national museum is not in a position to accurately establish what objects it has in its possession.
"Many of these records which date back to the 18th and 19th centuries do not assist in locating the objects listed or establishing whether they are still in the custody of the NMI," states Mr Purcell.
Serious concerns were also raised about the environmental, humidity and temperature controls of storage facilities, which left the collections at risk of decay, deterioration and damage.
A number of objects were being stored outdoors at one site and the national museum accepted that some important archaeological objects had not been conserved because of a lack of resources.
In a reference to the eight storage locations, Mr Purcell states: "Problems encountered were overcrowding, dirt, dampness and leaks. There was also a general lack of environmental controls throughout."
National museum director Dr Pat Wallace yesterday cited a lack of resources and said it had long sought to have adequate staff numbers.
He said that comprehensive plans relating to inventories, collections, and procedures were now under way. In addition, a statement of strategy is to be tabled at the April board meeting, he said.
But in a retort to Mr Purcell's findings he added: "I regret that it was not possible for the C&AG's report either to give credit to how far the museum had come (in 15 years) or to adequately contextualise deficiencies which are due to shortages of resources, mostly of staff."
The spokesman for Arts and Heritage Minster Séamus Brennan accepted that large-scale investment was needed to address the problems. The current budget for 2007 was €13.5 million, some €7 million of which went on staff costs. €6 million was allotted for capital spending.
"Funding of over €150 million will be targeted at specific modernisation, expansion and storage initiatives, with more than €70 million earmarked for the National Museum at Collins Barracks, the refurbishment of the Natural History Museum, provision of a shared storage facility and digitisation of the National Collections," said the spokesman.