Dr. Mark Clinton:

It is stated in our submission that this will have to be recognised by the State where, say, there is a crumbling castle or abbey on private land and increased rainfall and so on due to climate change is doing serious damage. Abbeys, for example, were built with mortar, not for the rainfall we are potentially going to get in the coming years. If someone is unlucky enough to have one of these monuments on his or her land, it is reasonable that there would be a grant system because the OPW will not be able to deal with it. Facilitating the protection of monuments on private land is being totally overlooked. The OPW is always very vocal in defending its own patch and it is very good at that, but only about 700 sites are protected by the agency, which leaves more than 100,000 on their own.

As Deputy Ó Snodaigh says, a farmer, landowner or whoever cannot be expected to pay for the stabilisation of an abbey, a castle site or an earthen structure that is not a national monument. It is a lacuna.