Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the clarification and response on the latter two amendments. With respect to the substance of amendment No. 191, which is to ensure the same protection and care for discovered burial grounds - such as the two categories I mentioned - as official burial grounds, can the Minister of State convince me that the provisions elsewhere in the Bill that allow such ground to be treated as national monuments is sufficient to give them exactly the same level of protection as the categories of burial grounds dealt with under this section? Can he perhaps give me reasons why I should accept his argument with respect to that?

With respect to disposal and destruction, clearly, we are not arguing that if there are objects that are a threat to public health they should not be disposed of appropriately. My worry is how the Minister of State can satisfy me that this provision covers the type of case that he outlined but may not be abused or misused to destroy an archaeological object that is not a threat to public health, but could be destroyed for other reasons, including reasons that run contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of the Bill.