The building housing the National Museum of Ireland’s collection “presents a significant long-term risk” as it is “at full capacity” and not at the standard required to safely preserve the items, the museum board’s chair has said.
The collection, which consists of about four million objects, has been stored at the Collections Resource Centre in Swords, north county Dublin, since 2010.
The Office of Public Works (OPW) rents the 18,116sq m (195,000sq ft) building from a private landlord at an annual cost of €2.6 million and sublets it to the museum. The lease was due to expire in 2030 but was extended in 2024 until 2044.
The museum has long raised concerns about the building, saying an alternative location was needed.
Prof Cathal O’Donoghue, chair of the museum’s board, said the building was a “non-purpose-built facility” and “presents a significant long-term risk given the scale of the collection”.
Efforts were needed to find a more suitable location as it will take a long time to move the vast and delicate collection, he said.
“The specific risk relates to the length of time required to move the collection … Early pre-planning is essential,” he said.
O’Donoghue made the remarks in letters to Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan last August and September.
O’Donoghue said the lease extension gave some stability but did “not resolve the underlying strategic challenge”. Thefacility “is at full capacity and lacks the environmental and structural standards required for long-term collections”.
He said the museum board had “a statutory obligation to preserve the national collection”, which was growing “in perpetuity”.
The board had “consistently highlighted the need for early planning and cross-departmental engagement to progress a permanent, purpose-built solution”. He said this “would not only safeguard the national collection but also ensure more efficient and strategic use of public resources”.
The letters were released following a Freedom of Information request.
Speaking to the Irish Times Early Edition podcast, O’Donoghue said it would take seven years to rehome the collection if 2,500 objects were moved from the current location to a new facility every day.
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He said museum representatives had “very positive engagement with key stakeholders” about finding a new storage location, but “we need to make it happen now”.
O’Donoghue said the collection was “extremely broad”, featuring archeological objects, carriages and costumes.
“We only show maybe 10 per cent of our collection in our museums where the public visit, 90 per cent of our collection is in storage. So, everything you could imagine.”
The Minister was due to visit the Collections Resource Centre recently to see the issues raised by O’Donoghue first-hand but could not “due to Dáil business”, a spokesman said, adding that “a rearranged visit will take place in the coming months”.
Representatives from the department and the OPW are working with the museum to help find a permanent storage facility, a museum statement noted.
The current building, which once housed a Motorola factory, was previously owned by property developer Gerry Gannon but was put on the market in 2024. Efforts to confirm the identity of the new owner were unsuccessful, and the OPW or museum would not say who the landlord is.
In 2025, the OPW paid almost €1.6 million towards the lease, while the museum paid just over €1 million. A rent review is due to take place in September 2029 and at five-year intervals thereafter.
A spokeswoman said the OPW sought to acquire the building when it came to market two years ago and made an offer “in excess of the market value”.
The OPW was engaging with the museum to support its strategic development, she added.
