Irish Examiner View: Digitising RTÉ archives is a public service

Mick Lally and Emmet Bergin in Glenroe, one of the programmes being digitised. 

Public service broadcasters have a huge, ever-expanding responsibility to the present but they also have a great responsibility to the past. 

RTÉ have recognised this by, despite huge financial difficulties, committing more than €3m to digitise programmes from the 1950s to 2003 to make them available online. Not all of these programmes are priceless nuggets waiting to be rediscovered but they are important time capsules and reminders of what Ireland was and how very far we have come.