Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Funding of over €45.5 million has been made available for the Department's heritage programme. This includes €35.7 million allocated for current expenditure, €9.8 million for capital expenditure and a further sum of €2 million by way of capital carry over. Total gross expenditure for programme B up to 30 June 2017 was €7.102 million. That is 16% of the 2017 programme allocation. In addition, approval has been received from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to apply capital savings of €4 million to sub-head B5, natural heritage National Parks and Wildlife Services. This additional funding is being used in part to meet the costs arising in 2017 of Government agreed compensation for turf cutters affected by measures implemented to support compliance with the EU Habitats Directive as well as to provide for essential works at our national parks and reserves. Sanction has also been received to apply further capital savings of €2 million to meet additional demand under built heritage schemes.

The first half of 2017 has been extremely busy at the national parks and reserves, with visitor numbers for the full year expected to exceed 3 million. The development of the strategic partnership with Fáilte Ireland with regard to the national parks continued apace in the first six months of the year, as did the planned programmes of investment. A highlight of that investment was the opening to the public for the first time of the historic rooms at Killarney House. Since the official opening of the rooms on 4 July, over 17,000 visitors have seen them. Work on our outdoor recreation facilities at the parks also continued with several extensions to trails and other visitor amenities.

National monuments sites operated on the Department's behalf by the Office of Public Works, OPW, have also enjoyed a record year with visitor numbers set to exceed 3.2 million. There was also a strategic investment partnership with Fáilte Ireland for our national monuments and capital funding is now going into much-needed improvements in visitor facilities and interpretation at key sites. Work on the natural environment also continues and I look forward to publishing the national biodiversity action plan tomorrow at the Botanic Gardens. Any members of the committee who are available are welcome to attend.

Work has been done on international compliance particularly in respect of the special areas of conservation, SACs. It was my privilege in recent weeks to launch the living bog project in Clara Bog, which will oversee the rehabilitation of significant tranches of raised bog in the midland region. This will be a historic year for investment by the Department in built heritage. Over €4 million, leveraging a further €3 million, will be invested by the end of the year in important heritage buildings and structures. The Department has also progressed work on a national heritage plan and I look forward to reporting to the committee on that matter in due course.