Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is an area in which I have always had an interest, on a range of different fronts, including history and archaeology. I studied the latter in first year and my father was in the National Museum. There have been a wide range of influences on my life that have made me interested in this area.

In terms of rural Ireland in particular, I understand a lot in terms of where the finds are and where they should be because the logainmneacha, the placenames, tell the story. They point to the facts. Sometimes farmers will claim ignorance whereas the name of the field will suggest exactly what is in that field although the specifics of it may have been lost in the fog of time, so we need to be careful. People might not know exactly what is on their land and there are out-of-the-blue finds, with no history behind them. That is why it is important that we understand our language or our heritage, although one does not have to have Irish to understand it. It is written and informed by superstitions. Why is it that they are called ring forts? Why did generation after generation not go near them? They understood the value of the history and they built up superstitions around it. The superstition was that ring forts were fairy forts and anyone who touched them would have bad luck. There are other superstitions related to burial grounds and so on. This is not just relevant to this country but to every country in the world.

It is important when we are putting the register together to make sure it is not just are register of monuments and their location. We must also include the context because that is the key. This is true of the hill forts in Wicklow or of Newgrange, for example. I remember going to Newgrange as a child. I only visited it once because my parents were more interested in Knowth and Dowth. I remember, before there was any excavation, going into a tunnel there, even though we were not supposed to. We saw a dog coming out of it. We were only kids and could fit in and health and safety issues were not a concern in those days. It was not designated, there was no signage, there was nothing. Now, thankfully, the State has invested money in it but the State does not have the money to invest in 130,000 sites so what do we do? How do we prioritise? We are drawing up legislation to provide protection but how do we go beyond that? How do we give the State the power, through this legislation, to provide that protection? How do we provide encouragement to the State to do more than just list monuments on a register, to go beyond that? Some of the monuments are underground and they should be left there. We do not have the archaeologists to dig them up and we do not want to do so either.

I mentioned Google Maps earlier and signage is important. However, signage does not have to mean huge monstrosities. I attended a presentation a few years ago on the QR code card and that is all that is needed. If we put a QR code on every site, then when people want to find out about it, they can scan the code. They can be directed to a website, with audio and visuals, containing information on that site and links to other sites. That would be a lot cheaper than putting up a brass plaque. Sometimes that is a concern of local authorities.

We have an opportunity, when drafting this legislation, to be imaginative. We must imagine using today's technologies for our benefit. That feeds into TII's concerns about the register of finds becoming an administrative burden. Nobody wants this to be an administrative burden.

There has to be some type of administration and it is hoped that type of approach may help those such as TII, in order that there is not a delay when there is a find and we have the wherewithal to address it in a way in which a decision is made early enough on whether it is to be protected in situ or whatever and if a road, railway or cycle track needs to be protected in situ, that we quickly then find our way around it or find an alternative together, as often should have been the case.

The local authorities were concerned in their presentation about the burial grounds. There is a mention on page 33 of the legislation that the Minister could "vest in local authorities similar burial grounds the status of which was not finally resolved under the 19th century legislation". Local authority archaeology officers were already concerned about additional work on them without additional resources. Will they elaborate on that?