Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is clear from what the Minister has said that the road to getting UNESCO designation is long and difficult, but in the case of some of the sites on this list, it is simply a road to nowhere. The local authority in Kerry has said that it is not interested. In the Minister's letter to me, and I appreciate she might not have been adequately briefed by her officials, she states:

Kerry County Council informed the Department that it did not wish to be involved in progressing the potential Western Stone Forts nomination (which includes Cahercommaun in Co. Clare) ... This was also the case in Clonmacnoise, which had obvious implications both for the potential nomination of the site in its own right, as well as for its status as a crucial element of the potential serial nomination of the Early Medieval Monastic Sites, which of course includes Inis Cealtra.

If Kerry or Offaly County Councils, or whatever county councils, are not interested in this, that is their right. The Minister did say it should not be a top-down approach and should involve local communities and local authorities, but if they do not want to move forward, surely that should not affect every other site on the early monastic list, which includes Glendalough, Durrow and Inis Cealtra, which I am most concerned with because it is in my constituency. There was also a report into promoting Lough Derg and one of the findings was that it lacked an iconic site that could be used as the centrepiece of marketing it. That is clearly the beautiful early monastic site of Inis Cealtra, and Clare County Council is at an advanced stage in seeking to acquire it. Can we move forward with that without Clonmacnoise? Can studies be done on it? In my letter to the Minister I outlined that UNESCO had said there is an upstream process where rather than incurring all the expense of going through the nomination process only for it to be refused, experts can be engaged at an earlier stage to examine whether it is feasible to do this.

Can funding be devolved to our progressive county councils who want to move this forward both because they recognise the important heritage, which is a huge value in itself and also its tourist value?

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