The National Library of Ireland is developing a suite of actions to create a "more diverse and inclusive story of Ireland", and to ensure that a wider range of voices are collected and shared with the world.

The National Library, in partnership with the Creative Ireland Programme, will work with groups who are underrepresented in national narratives or whose culture and heritage is at risk of not being collected and preserved for future generations. This commitment is laid out in the NLI’s Diversity and Inclusion Policy 2018-2021, which was launched today (June 12) by Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan TD.

The policy sets out the NLI’s action plan and was developed following an internal consultation and review process with a policy expert, which highlighted that for the first 100 years of the NLI’s existence the organisation’s senior management was entirely male, but today it is 88% female, and that during 2017 donations to the NLI related to men outnumbered donations related to women by more than 5 to 1.