Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 7 is a technical amendment which just allows for the placing of amendment No. 8.

Amendment No. 8 seeks to provide that, in section 17 of the Bill, where the Minister seeks to delete particulars which have been entered in the register under subsection (1), and where such a deletion would have the effect that a prescribed monument would cease to be considered as such, the Minister would first have to seek the views of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

Amendment No. 8 reflects the engagement the Minister of State had with me and Senator Boyhan on a Committee Stage amendment of mine. I have accepted the point and the argument the Minister of State made then, that is, that the particulars referred to in section 17 could include landowners' information, geographical areas, technical details or descriptions of monuments. Lots of information might get changed within a register. Amendment No. 8 is specific, clear and unambiguous that, effectively, the subsection applies only where a thing will cease to be a national monument by means of its removal from the register.

Throughout the pre-legislative scrutiny process the point was raised that an awful lot of the powers in this Bill are based on ministerial discretion. I know that this is an area the Minister of State cares a lot about, but a future Minister may not place the same value on our heritage. It is an issue that has been well documented. Amendment No. 8 seeks to strike something of a balance. At the moment there is not that balance in the Bill.

We have read out previously the definitions of intangible cultural heritage in speaking to the wider points. I appreciate the briefing the Minister of State gave me. I am sure we will have the opportunity to debate it. As for the definitions of archaeological heritage, in some areas our legislation goes further than the Valletta Convention but in others it does not go as far as it. We will come back to that later.

The key concern is that we know that rights of way, to give an example I have given before, are more evident in their being quashed and overturned than in new ones being instated. We know there were real concerns about the wildlife legislation previously proposed to these Houses, whereby de-designation was a lot easier and happened a lot quicker than designation. The concern here is that the legislation may provide for prescribed monuments to cease to be considered as such almost by virtue of the Minister's will or pen, without the safeguard of, for example, the Oireachtas joint committee's engagement on that.

People have different interests. It is not just that some Ministers love heritage and some do not. There will be Ministers who are au faitwith architectural heritage but may not have much interest in cultural or environmental heritage. Having input from the Oireachtas joint committee allows for diverse perspectives, not just diverse political perspectives but also diverse expertises, that might be on that committee to offer useful input to a Minister who is thinking of removing protection, effectively, from a monument and removing its status as a prescribed monument. There may be someone on that committee who will bring a historical sense, a cultural sense or even an archaeological sense that might be missing in a particular Minister. That is a useful resource for a Minister when making such an important decision.

I hope the Minister of State will consider inclusion of amendment No. 8. As I said, amendment No. 7 is just technical.