9th February 2005, 03:00 PM
What would make the Irish system better? where to start! Yes, there is meant to be a guilt system built into it, so that if you don't get your post-ex done & licence criteria filled, you don't get another licence. It rarely works. A couple of years ago, Oxford were commissioned to carry out a survey of unfinished licences. Take a guess at who the main culprits were, that's right, not the licenced private archaeologists, but the Museum and Duchas (govt. agency). The State archaeologists responsible for licences, overseeing archaeology and all that, are hopelessly overworked and under-resourced. (Sounding familiar yet...?) Also, there are so few licenced archaeologists, and so much demand, that quite simply, there's no option other than to grant the licence. The archaeology does get dug, and generally to a fairly decent standard, it's the post-ex and publication that suffers. That's what needs to be addressed if you were to start from scratch, find some way to follow the whole process through.