Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will take the last point first. As Deputy Durkan will know, the issue of Castletown House has preoccupied me and the Department for quite a long time. I have never attempted to blame anybody for what is going on down there and I do not believe any of our officials would wish to. However, the reality is we sought in good faith to buy the lands adjoining Castletown House that were originally part of the Castletown estate. As I have said before here, in the Dáil and in meetings with the residents' groups and the various local groups in Celbridge and the wider north Kildare area, it is the stated ambition of the Office of Public Works to reunite the lands at Castletown. This is an important asset not just for north Kildare but for the 1 million people who visit it every year. It is not just an amenity; it is a strategically important national asset. We want to reunite the lands.

The Deputy is no stranger to the Committee of Public Accounts and will know we have to operate within the confines of the public spending code. We also have to operate within the confines of the legal advice we get. In doing that, we have to operate in the best interests of all of the people. The people of Celbridge pay their taxes but so do people in Maynooth, Cahersiveen and Navan. This is not an issue of where the tax comes from. We have to be cognisant of all of that. In all too many cases before, we have seen the public spending code not being adhered to and people like me and officials like my officials having to come before committees like this to answer questions as to why advices were not adhered to. That being said, it is still our ambition to resolve this issue.

I thank Deputy Durkan for the praise he has heaped upon the staff of the Office of Public Works who have looked after the house for many years and who now cannot get into the building unless they walk in. It is well established at this stage that the lands at the N4 are no longer in the ownership of the previous owner. The previous agreement has expired so that entry is no longer available to us. That does not mean that we are averse to continuing to explore the possibility of getting the lands into State ownership or arriving at a solution as regards access. All of that being said, we have devoted considerable resources to this. We have even considered facilitation by an independent person who would bring all of the interested parties, including the other State bodies involved - Kildare County Council and An Garda Síochána - where necessary, to the table on this issue.

I agree with Deputy Durkan. We are the only ones who are not allowed in via Lime Avenue. Kildare County Council and Irish Water can go in that way. The only people who cannot are those employed by the Office of Public Works. As I said from the outset, nobody is suggesting that this become the main access route for hundreds of thousands of vehicles and the million people who visit the house every year. That is why the issue is broader than just the Office of Public Works. The parking strategy will have to involve Kildare County Council, as was the case with the Phoenix Park parking and mobility strategy. If you go out to another stately home we operate, you will see vehicular access to Farmleigh House operating cheek by jowl with pedestrian access and there is no problem with that. There is a constable of the Office of Public Works standing there. It is maintained and the vehicle points are kept to an absolute minimum. It is the same at Doneraile in County Cork. It is our stated ambition to reach a point at which Castletown estate is in State ownership, and I think everyone would like to see that.

However, we are not the authors of our own destiny when it comes to other people's land, the use of their land and the constitutional protections relating to their land. They can do with their land whatever they decide to do with it.