This is a bit of a farce. I studied archaeology to a masters level and I cant get a job with the OPW. Now they want to fill vacanies with upayed labour. Thanks for nothing Hayes.

Also Jay Funk OPW sites do not close on Mondays. The National Museums and Galleries do – they are not run by the OPW. Most OPW sites are open 7 days a week – some all year around and most over a seasonal period.

Hypocritical, when the OPW spent millions on an unnecessary project at Boyle Abbey. New OPW guides are now on the minimum wage and are often working alongside ‘permanent’ guides who are earning €3 and €4 per hour more than them. They’ll be looking for unpaid labour via Job Bridge next.

Wicklow Gaol is not run by the OPW, it is a commercial entity. OPW heritage sites are not necessarily about making money rather about preserving the sites and having as many people as possible view them and connect with our history. Last Summer Brian Hayes announced a new iniative allowing free access to all OPW heritage sites on the first Wednesdays of every month. Why do this and lose ticket money on these days if the OPW is now so badly funded that they need volunteers to do what should be paid work. Most OPW site staff have some level of qualification in history/heritage/museums, qualifications paid for by the state through free third level education. WHy bother offering any qualifications in these areas if you are not going to provide paid jobs. In any case OPW site staff are paid extremely low wages, below the average industrial wage in the case of most employees. Now they want people to work for nothing. Investing in tourism is exactly that – investment for which there is a return to the economy – if the OPW had any sense they would continue to professionalise the sector and also increase ticket prices which are ridiculously low at just a maximum of E6 per adult.

This is yet another poorly developed idea which is attempting to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Not only have the OPW blatently restricted opening times of popular and important sites themselves, i.e. The Hill of Tara, but they already use unpaid labour in the form of work experience people from various ‘job creation’ schemes funded by other agencies. Most sites are not run as commercial enterprizes which would generate funds because there is a dis-locate between ‘Tourism’ and ‘Heritage’ . Consider the closure of the tourist office at Bru na Boinne, one of the busiest ‘Heritage’ sites in the country? Until there is joined-up thinking between the relevant bodies,trying to create dis-cord between volunteers and paid staff is counterproductive at the very least. Also, who is going to train this army of unpaid workers to replace them in their own low paid jobs????

So…an opportunity to create jobs is to be helmed by volunteers. This is damaging for those who hold jobs in the heritage sector already, why pay them if someone is willing to do it or free? I am all for bringing these fantastic heritage sites into the conscious of tourism but it needs to be revenue generating in order to pay for information provision, ongoing maintenance, marketing and vitally sustaining jobs. You can’t expect to get it All done for nothing!

I went to wicklow jail and i was shocked that they hire people from the UK to do their ghost tours. Not only that but they told us that the jail even paid for their hotel during their stay !! what worse then that , the English couple were clearly fake. Good to see were the OPW money is going