The Keeper of Natural History at the National Museum of Ireland, commonly known as the 'Dead Zoo', has said that the refurbishment of the museum's site in Dublin city centre will be slow going.
The museum has been closed since September of last year in order to facilitate major refurbishment works.
The Natural History Museum was built in 1856 and is often referred to as a 'museum in a museum'.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Paolo Viscardi said they have not got the building's plans as they may have been destroyed in the Customs House fire in during the War of Independence.
The building, situated on Merrion Street, is almost 170 years old and needs "a huge amount" of work to make it fit for purpose into the future.
"There's a huge amount that has to be done because it's never had any kind of major refurbishment before," Mr Viscardi said.
He added: "It's a big job, doing the planning and understanding what we can do and what needs to be done, what the building requires because we don't know enough about it because we just don't have the information.
"We're just about to undertake investigative works in the space so that’ll be starting next week.
"At the moment, it's not a great space for a museum. It's a wonderful, beautiful building, we love it, and historically it has huge, huge significance and we don't want to lose that," he said.
While the Dead Zoo is undergoing the refurbishment, the Natural History Museum will be opening a 'Dead Zoo Lab' at the National Museum, at Collins Barracks.
Mr Viscardi said the museum will be "experimenting" with its exhibits to see what appeals to visitors before the move back to Merrion Street.
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"We tried to get a good selection of the really popular objects from Merrion Street," he said.
"So we have things like Spoticus the giraffe, we've got out giant Irish deer and we've even been able to get out some specimens that haven’t been on display for quite some time."
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