Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank all the speakers who supported this amendment. I know the Minister is not talking about the actual site but it is all part of the one estate. I want to put on the record of the Dáil that they got legal advice and that they believed the rezoning of the Westwood estate was the same in the adopted development plan as it appears in the draft development plan.

The Minister is correct. They were not talking about the house itself but the entire grounds. The problem, however, is that some of the ground needs to be sold to keep the house. That has been the Green Party's plan in regard to the 80% windfall tax and it is the same party that is lecturing me, Deputy Rabbitte and every Member in this House about saving our heritage sites. The Green Party now has an opportunity to do something about a site that everybody, including the Westport people, town council and county council, has been encouraging Lord Altamont to develop further for the past 50 years.

Only seven or eight heritage houses are left in the country. The others have all been bought by private developers and developed. Westport House is open to the public and it is a major tourist attraction in the town of Westport. I was a member of the town council and the county council. The council, perhaps for historical reasons, never wanted to deal with Lord Altamont. I suppose the Minister's party had a part to play in it. Lord Altamont was a better Westport man than most others in the town. He loved the town and was born and reared there, as were his daughters. He did more for tourism in the Westport area than Bord Fáilte, Ireland West Tourism and the State ever did but got very little grant aid. Westport House is a lovely stately home and is open to the public.

I ask the Minister to make an amendment on Committee Stage in the Seanad covering the heritage site and grounds to try to deal with this issue. Such heritage sites, even if they number only 16 or 17, are worth preserving. This is what I believed the Green Party was fighting for. I should not be fighting for this. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, should be here supporting me this evening and saying I am a great man to be advocating the preservation of heritage sites. Instead, he is trying to close down one of the few we have left. It does not make sense. I ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs to do something for the man. We want the site developed and to keep the tourist attraction in Westport. I ask the Minister to make an amendment on Committee Stage in the Seanad.

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