To ask the Minister for Communities how many archaeological items are held in storage; and will she undertake a programme to share our history by undertaking a proactive programme of displaying these artefacts in hospitals, schools and libraries.

My Department’s Historic Environment Division (HED) holds the excavation material from 450 excavations carried out by its staff and their predecessors since 1950. Given the fragmentary nature of most of the material recovered in excavations (which can include animal bones, production waste, pottery sherds and environmental samples) it is impossible to state the total number of items but there are certainly tens of thousands of individual items in this material. HED also curates a limited amount of material from non-Departmental excavations, including some works associated with infrastructure schemes.

In regard to display, many of the most significant objects in HED’s possession are already on loan to a variety of appropriate and publically accessible institutions, including National Museums NI (NMNI), local authority museums and heritage centres; and some relevant artefacts are also on display on some of the monuments in the care of the Department, such as Greypoint Fort and Bellaghy Bawn.

All loan requests to NMNI are individually assessed to ascertain the security and environmental conditions required for the objects requested. NMNI refer to industry standards and important considerations such as object security, condition, rarity, value and accessibility. NMNI works closely with requesting venues to ensure the standards necessary for the national collections. Libraries and in some instances schools can provide suitable exhibition spaces. However, the level of security required, especially in regard to damage and theft prevention, and environmental stability, is not normally available within public spaces such as libraries, schools or hospitals. In any of these buildings secure, museum-standard cases would be required for display purposes, and these cases are very costly to acquire.