Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

If it is useful, I might give a detailed background to this, given the issue of a national monuments advisory council has arisen in a number of amendments. I will update the committee on the request in respect of the resources of the Heritage Council, and I have information on excavation licences that might be useful for the context of today's session.

The National Monuments Advisory Council, NMAC, was established under the National Monuments Act 1930. At the time of its establishment, the Office of Public Works, which had responsibility at central government level for national monuments, had no professional archaeological staff, although it did have professional architectural staff. As revised under section 15 of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1954, the membership of the NMAC comprised an officer of the Department of Education, an officer of the OPW and such numbers of other persons as the Minister nominated from the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland.

It is clear from the archives of the national monuments service that the NMAC did important work in making recommendations for the imposition of preservation orders under the Act of 1930 at a time when there were no professional archaeologists on the staff of the OPW and limited expertise, with notable exceptions, in architectural heritage conservation. In addition, the NMAC was referenced in the relevant planning regulations from an early date after enactment of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 1963 as a statutory consultee in the planning process.

However, with the growth of a professional archaeological service within the national monuments service beginning in the 1960s and accelerating in the 1980s, combined with rapid growth in planning casework being referred by planning authorities to the NMAC in the 1980s, the model of a part-time, largely voluntary advisory body being led in heritage casework became both unnecessary and impractical. By the early 1990s, while the NMAC was still the body nominally providing archaeological and architectural heritage advice to planning authorities, the responses were prepared by staff of the national monuments service, which had also provided a secretariat to the NMAC. The policy given effect under the Heritage Act 1995 and associated amendments to the planning regulations was that the NMAC would be subsumed into a new independent, multidisciplinary heritage advisory body, the Heritage Council.

This model remains sound. In the years since, despite ongoing resourcing difficulties that are now being sought to be addressed through significant recruitment since 2021, the Heritage Council has continued to develop as a key regulatory body, both for regulating professional archaeological practice and monument protection under the National Monuments Acts and by way of the provision of advice to planning authorities. The Heritage Council's independent mandate is set out in the Heritage Act 1995 and through that, the advisory functions under the National Monuments Acts regarding important matters, which are inherited from the NMAC, can intervene as necessary. As I explained, the function being expressly conferred on the Heritage Council under the Bill, combined with the general powers the council has under the Heritage Act 1995, will ensure this situation is not only continued but strengthened.

An impression has been given during our discussions that deletions from existing registers are a current occurrence, but they are not. The record of monuments and places established in the late 1990s contains something of the order of 130,000 entries. In the quarter-century since its establishment, there has not been a single deletion from it. While further research would be needed to be definitive, my officials are not, as matters stand, aware of any deletions from the 5,000 monuments entered so far onto the register of historic monuments established under the National Monuments (Amendment) Act. The removal of special protection under the Bill is considered to be analogous with the revocation of a preservation order. In recent years, the Department has dealt with only one request to revoke a preservation order and, in accordance with relevant provisions of the National Monuments Acts, consulted the Heritage Council in that regard. The council advised against revocation and the request to revoke was refused by the Department on my behalf. There is only one case of which my officials are aware where provisions for consulting the council regarding possible revocation was triggered, for the simple reason no one can recall a case where a preservation order was revoked or even where consideration of revocation proceeded to the point where consultation with the council had to occur.

Far from in any way weakening the law, the Bill will strengthen it at a fundamental level. For the first time, there will be automatic legal protection for all classes of monuments set out in regulations made under the Bill. Nothing is being lost in terms of consultation; in fact, it is being expanded. Not only will the Minister of the day have to consult the Heritage Council in regard to the removal of special protection, there will have to be consultation with the council regarding any proposed deletion from the new statutory register. This goes much further than the existing National Monuments Acts. Where a licence that would result in the demolition of a registered monument subject to special protection is sought, an environmental impact assessment, EIA, will be required. In real terms, this is a far more comprehensive protection than the approval procedures in the National Monuments Act 1994 and will involve the public as well as statutory consultees.

Based on what experience has shown and given the professionalism and commitment of the strong team at the national monuments service, there will be very few proposals to delete monuments from the register. I cannot see how it would be sustainable or warranted to establish a new statutory body, parallel to both the national monuments service of the Department and the existing independent Heritage Council, to deal with a handful of cases or perhaps even to find no cases at all to deal with. If it is argued a reconstituted NMAC should have a wider consultative role in licensing under the Bill generally or planning advisory casework, I ask Deputies to consider the realities of how a part-time and largely voluntary body would deal with hundreds of licences and thousands of referred planning applications annually. My priority, in tandem with introducing this new and groundbreaking legislation, is to continue to work to better resource expert teams within the national monuments service and the Heritage Council, and I strongly believe this is the correct priority.

In regard to the query about the resources of the Heritage Council, I gave assurances we will have our budgetary discussions with the council regarding its requirements, noting the enactment of the Bill. At present, the Heritage Council has staff - two individuals - with master's qualifications in archaeology, one of whom is a member of the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland, and a further member of staff is a trained and published historian. The council is currently well resourced but, obviously, if we anticipate any additional demand arising from this legislation, we will have discussions with it in that regard.

Deputy O'Callaghan asked about excavation licences. For the period 2004 to 2023, 15,685 excavation licences were issued. A total of 86% of the excavation licences issued were for monitoring, testing or research purposes and data on monuments discovered as a result of a licensed excavation are not available. Approximately 1,200 monuments are added to the Department’s historic environment viewer annually as a result of new monuments reported to the national monuments service, and they will be transferred to the new register. Since last year, I have funded the INSTAR+ archaeological research programme, at up to €1 million this year.

That has been really useful in making good use of archaeological found material, allowing for additional research and making it available to the public. I visited the UCC school of archaeology in recent weeks to look at some of the projects it has under the INSTAR+ programme. It is really innovative and provides valuable resources and information for the wider public on archaeological finds.