Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for highlighting this most important issue for Carlingford and north County Louth. It is not the first time the Senator has brought this matter to attention. In the two months or thereabouts I have been in the job he has worn a path to my door on this issue. I know he does so because it is very close to his heart and that of his community. I also know that it is an issue on which the collective community in Carlingford has been working with him. I believe I have received correspondence from it and I have written back to the community organisations involved. We can see from the picture the Senator gave me that this is such a scenic area with such huge potential in promoting heritage and attracting tourists. I assure him that, despite what I can only describe as the bureaucratic difficulties the project faced, I am determined to have a renewed focus on resolving the issue.

The Senator knows this, but it is important to say it. Carlingford is a walled town which is famous for its surviving mediaeval buildings. The OPW has responsibility for three of them - the Mint in the centre of the town, the abbey on the southern side and, since 1919, King John's Castle in its prominent location overlooking the harbour. The castle is an important monument and, with other sites in State care locally, contributes a significant amount to the heritage of the area and has in my view and that of the OPW the potential to attract a considerable number of visitors.

The castle was most likely built by the Anglo-Norman knight John de Courcy and later became the property of Hugh de Lacy around the end of the 12th century. It was seized by King John in 1210 who stayed for three days and hence gave it its popular name. The castle is a D shaped "shell keep", with corner towers and a large twin-towered gatehouse facing the western side. It suffered great deal of destruction and rebuilding on the western side when the railway cutting was made nearby in 1876. The large gate tower was demolished and the present entrance was made through a window embrasure. The wide access bridge across the railway line was also built at this time to maintain the connection between the town and the castle. The gap in the outer wall of the castle left by the demolition of the gate tower - the traditional main entrance - was filled in with a new stone wall.

Access to the castle for interested members of the public was available previously through a local keyholder system which worked relatively well. However, with changes in health and safety requirements, the entrance and the interior of the castle were not considered safe owing to uneven ground, unprotected edges, low door lintels and irregular steps. The path around the outside did not travel the full circuit of the walls, leaving a gap which was not safe to cross. This also presents a significant hazard.

As large parts of the interior are, therefore, now deemed unsafe, the building has been closed to the public pending a project - as the Senator outlined - to rectify the position.

Bearing in mind the importance of the site and its prominent location in the town, it has been an aim of the OPW for some time to carry out works there in order to address the problem and restore public access to the monument in order that its visitor potential can be more fully exploited. I am really interested in achieving that goal. A number of early phases, including a full archaeological investigation, have already been completed and what remains to be done is the central physical work to address the access and safety issues. The project which has been devised will address these matters directly and will, when it is complete, greatly improve the existing position by facilitating safe universal access for the public, including for those with disabilities, along the line of the original entrance and through the ramped drawbridge. It is also proposed to carry out other works to make the various internal areas safe and provide level surfaces for easier and safer pedestrian circulation.

Following my predecessor's visit to the Carlingford site in the summer of 2012, the OPW's national monuments service progressed the design of the project and lodged a consent application in late 2012 to the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for the necessary works. As the Senator indicated, this consent is required under the National Monuments Acts in all cases where works are being proposed in order that the Minister can fully consider the implications of proposed works and their effect on the monument. Owing to the nature of the OPW proposals, it became apparent in early 2013 that there were a number of important archaeological, architectural and legal implications relative to the project which the Department needed to assess fully before proceeding. The matter at issue related to an element of the works involving the dismantling of a section of wall which had been constructed at the location of the original gate tower after 1876, providing a proper foundation and rebuilding it in the same position but with a new access doorway inserted. This is a key element of the project and will facilitate the universal access route which is the central objective of the work. However, as the proposal obviously involves dismantling an element of the monument fabric, the position clearly needed to be carefully assessed. This is obviously an important consideration in the context where we are trying, above all, to conserve the historical accuracy and authenticity of the fabric and the OPW proposal was an issue that the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht's experts needed to consider most carefully.

In the interim, while these issues were being considered, work could not proceed at the site. As time progressed, it became clear that the OPW workforce and the resources which had been assembled for the Carlingford project and which had been scheduled to carry out the necessary work in 2013 could not be kept in place indefinitely and were diverted to other work. The wall element at the centre of the debate is the first work to be undertaken on the project and, without consent to the treatment, the entire project was effectively delayed. Following detailed consideration of all of the relevant technical and legal issues, the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht issued consent for the project in June 2014 and the way is finally clear for it to proceed. I am sure the Senator will appreciate that in the meantime a number of other urgent works arose elsewhere which need to be addressed. These are works where the structural stability of monuments is under direct risk or where such monuments have already partially collapsed and where there are significant health and safety risks as a result. The resources of the OPW's national monuments service have, unfortunately, been significantly constrained in recent years because of the economic situation and its ability to mount large projects at a number of national monument sites simultaneously has been compromised.

The King John's Castle monument is currently in good structural condition and under no imminent threat; therefore, the only option for the OPW is to focus on the more urgent projects elsewhere and return to Carlingford as soon as time and priorities permit. While I completely accept all of what the Senator has to say about the value of the site from a tourism point of view, it is nevertheless clear that the OPW has been obliged to attend to other works. I give him and the community groups and people of Carlingford a clear commitment to the effect that the project has not been abandoned in any way. It remains a very important and worthwhile project which has already attracted considerable investment in terms of time and effort. I have, therefore, asked the commissioners of the OPW, in the light of the very strong representations made by the Senator, to make this issue a priority, keep it under active review and insert it into the office's work programme at the very first available opportunity.

I accept the point the Senator made in the context of the north Louth visitor services map. I take the opportunity to offer to visit Carlingford, meet the Senator and the community organisations concerned and see the castle at first hand. I certainly want to try to give the project a kick start. I am not in the business of providing disingenuous information and, in that context, I am not in a position to provide the Senator with a timeline at this point. However, I assure him that the project is going to be a priority for me and that I will visit Carlingford, inspect the castle with him and, with my officials, meet the local people in order to see how we might get the project back on track now that the various bureaucratic matters have been dealt with.