Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her answer. This matter was the subject of the Private Members' motion we discussed last week, the fate of which is as yet unclear. It will be voted on on Thursday but may well be defeated. If it is defeated, will the Minister consider some of the valuable proposals in the motion? One proposal sought to put in place an injunction or possibly other means to ensure that these sites of possible interest are protected in order that they can be investigated. Notwithstanding the points the Minister made that the uses of some of the sites have changed and many of them have been closed for several decades, not all of them have been. Some of them were still open until the late 1980s and early 1990s and some remain as they were. While I accept that the commission has a specific role in the matter, it cannot put in place any injunction or take any executive action, for want of a better term, to ensure that the sites are not interfered with. That is purely the remit of the Government and it will have documentation from the commission of investigation to guide it in the manner in which it acts.

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