Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and she will be aware that I am deputising for Deputies Bacik and Duncan Smith on this one. I will speak to amendment No. 28. An overhaul of the National Monuments Acts, 1930-2014, has been in development for more than a decade and represents an opportunity for a truly visionary and clear piece of legislation. The Bill is welcome insofar as it goes some way towards achieving this aim. It needs further clarification and amendment, however, to enable its proper functioning and to reflect international standards, notwithstanding what the Minister of State has said in respect of his response to amendment No. 28.

Our first amendment seeks to amend the definition of "relevant thing" in section 2, the definition section. At present "relevant thing" can mean a relevant structure, feature, site, and so on: "whether situated on, in or under land". This definition fails to appreciate that the landscape itself may be of relevance. Cultural landscapes are absent from the Bill.

There appears to be no provision for landscapes to be designated as either prescribed or registered monuments. This seems to be in contrast with the previous general scheme which provided an approach more in line with the Valetta Convention. There seems instead to be an assumption in the Bill that monuments are discrete entities in the landscape as opposed to possibly comprising certain landscapes themselves. World heritage categories include the category of cultural landscapes. If there was in future a world heritage designation of an Irish cultural landscape there would need to be a corresponding provision in Irish law to safeguard such a designation. In addition, Article 5 of the European Landscape Convention, to which Ireland is party, obliges each state to "recognise landscape in law as an essential component of people's surroundings, an expression of the diversity of their shared cultural and natural heritage and as a foundation of their identity." Our amendment seeks to address this omission by providing that landscapes can be included among "relevant things" under the Bill.

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