Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With a national monument of this nature, ducting and underground cabling can be quite a difficult issue, especially if it involves high-resolution cameras. There is no power source at that location. Taking all that into consideration, the only commitment I will give is that we will re-engage with Clare County Council and An Garda Síochána on this. If we put up cameras, there needs to be a way to store the information and the use of that information must be in compliance with the laws on data storage. Deputies Carey and Cathal Crowe will appreciate that. However, other measures can be looked at in the short term. Lighting some of these national monuments does not come without its problems. If they are habitats for bats and things like that, we are not allowed put up floodlights, which often irks local communities but that is the reality. We need to have cognisance of what we are allowed to do within the context of the law with regard to national monuments. However, it is not tolerable that a national monument is being used as an open dump, as Deputy Carey said. I have heard plenty of anecdotal and local information about the severity of this from the people we met when we were down there. We will take it seriously and we will re-engage.

The site is proximate to one of the biggest investments that we made in Munster, the Ennis south flood relief scheme, and I am glad it has been acknowledged here today. Together with the three schemes in Ennis now, it protects a town of 25,000 people, the largest in Munster. It gives that town the potential to grow even further and link the greenway, which is on top of the embankments created by the OPW, directly into the site of Clare Abbey. I encourage Clare County Council to improve the signage. The more people that we get in there and off the motorway, the less likely it is that people will take it upon themselves to deliver their rubbish there. These people from County Clare or wherever are arriving, unwelcome, and tipping their crap all over the place. Instead, they should take it home and put it into their own dustbins.

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