Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive update on his area. I also want to pay tribute to the Minister of State as he is active and interested in the area he is covering. The report he provided shows the width and breadth of what he has been doing.

I would like to focus on something I have previously asked the Minister of State about and it concerns a local matter that is also of national interest. It is specifically about the preservation of built heritage. I will do that by focusing on the Iveagh Market in Dublin. It was built in 1902, it is situated on Francis Street in Dublin 8 and it has fallen into severe dereliction. As the Minister of State may know, there was a deal between a city council and a publican to develop that market after the market closed in the 1990s and since then it has essentially been allowed to fall into dereliction. Some conservation experts have said that the market is close to collapse. It is estimated that it will cost up to €23 million just to bring it up to a basic standard, not even to restore it. I was interested in the report the Minister of State gave on the built heritage investment scheme historic fund and the community monuments fund. They are funded to the tune of €6 million for 562 projects, and €4.2 million, which is for 139 projects. That is far away from the amount it will take to bring something like the Iveagh Market back into use and protection. Are there any plans on behalf of the Government to invest more money in large-scale built heritage projects? Otherwise they will constantly be allowed to fall out of State hands and developers will run them down so they can build something else on them.

The Minister of State mentioned heritage legislation towards the end of his report. Are any plans included in that for punitive measures on people who deliberately run historic or protected structures into the ground in order to be able to knock them and develop the site? That is one of the key issues. Everybody knows that there is a clause which allows them to get around buildings that are on the record of protected structures or heritage buildings. If one allows them to fall into dilapidation then one can knock them down and build there. Are there any plans to include measures to tackle that?