Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ms McNelis's statement, in one of the many pieces of correspondence here, sums it up when she says:

If you can't get insurance there is no competition. All you get in this country is a stick. You get fined if you do not maintain a heritage building and yet you cannot insure it. There needs to be a carrot somewhere or heritage buildings will be lost forever in Ireland.

This makes for a very honest statement. It seems that the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, the Central Bank of Ireland, and everybody is involved here but there seems to be no answer. The statement from Ms McNelis is a testament to what could possibly happen here. Our heritage and our tourism is vital to us. Surely there has to be some middle ground where somebody can find some way or a common sense approach on it. I do not believe the petitioner will be happy with the recommendations. It is a very comprehensive report on it. I congratulate the secretariat and the staff of the committee. They put a lot of work into this. I do not know where or how it is going to be resolved but the end product is that we will lose our heritage. I know of people who had public houses and got rid of the thatch roofs and put slate roofs on. We are going to lose it. I do not know where this is going to go.