Johnny Guirke (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of the 5,500 year-old passage tombs at the top of Sliabh na Callaigh, Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath. Cairn T has been closed to the public since 2018. Immediate action should have been taken but it was not. My fears are that Cairn T will collapse before action is taken, making it harder to reopen to the public. It is currently propped up with an acro-jack. The issues with Loughcrew cairns were pointed out to the OPW over five years ago. Why has it taken so long before doing anything? There has been five years of continued erosion while Cairn T is propped up with an acro-jack. Not one thing has been done to protect this monument. If we wait for the OPW to go through a long-winded succession of nonsense, the roof of this incredibly precious monument, not only in terms of the origins of the Boyne Valley culture but in the precious neolithic history of Ireland, western Europe and the world, will have already collapsed. We have a fully intact series of solar-aligned passage chambers on top of Sliabh na Callaigh. Carnebane East and the fire pit at the top of Cairn T most likely signal those alignments around the 18+ counties visible from there, and possibly as far as western Scotland and west Wales.

Last December the chairperson of the OPW, Mr. Maurice Buckley, during questioning before the Committee of Public Accounts, said that €19.7 million was returned to Government coffers in 2022 alone. Yet, for the past five years the OPW has been pleading a lack of funds to bring back access to Cairn T. Simply put, that is not acceptable in this day and age. We need a swift and effective response from Government to ensure that Loughcrew cairns and other sites of national importance are protected. Can the Minister of State indicate what OPW conservational management plans are in place for remedial works on Cairn T, Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath? This has gone on too long. Not one thing has been done in five years and everybody in the area is afraid the cairn will collapse.

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