Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Senator Higgins has made a number of very valid points. I agree with what Senator Cummins has said in respect of work being very painstaking. The proposed amendment may be blunt but sometimes, bluntness works. Coming from County Meath, which is full of historic monuments and landscapes, I have seen painstaking work give me pain because of the length of time that the OPW is in situ.There is a wall on the Hill of Tara and the Great Wall of China was built quicker than what the OPW is at above in that graveyard. There are people buried beside the wall and I would say they are looking up and saying "Would ye ever finish it lads." It is deeply frustrating. Perhaps the amendment is blunt but sometimes bluntness works.

I am also deeply sceptical of agendas that get played out. I again reference the Hill of Tara. When I was a councillor on Meath County Council, plans were being devised to erect viewing platforms directed at the Mound of the Hostages.Senator Higgins used the word "sacred" about this place and she is right. For many people these monuments are living, breathing things. To the untrained eye, the Hill of Tara is just a grassy bank but to people who know something about the sacredness of the site, it is a living, breathing place. To take the public away from it would be to kill the very essence of what the monument is. I get very sceptical and afraid because we have seen recently how some amadán desecrated the coronation stone for the high kings on the Hill of Tara by spraying "fake" on all four sides of the stone.I am aware of the sensitivity of our monuments because of some who would desecrate them but I am equally afraid of some within our State who would not have us next or near them. If they had their way, it would be like a zoo and we would look in at them.

I know the Minister of State has a deep, passionate and caring feeling for all of our monuments, and I acknowledge that totally. I am afraid, however, because I have been around long enough as a councillor, Deputy and Senator and I have seen some of the architecture of the State trying to exclude people. It is good that this amendment is down and that there is a debate because that two years could become ten or 20 years very quickly and safeguards should be in place. If work needs to take place we should protect our monuments but sometimes other agendas are at play and they are used as Trojan horses to keep the public out in the long term. I do not want to see that happen because our relationship, as citizens, with sacred places such as Tara, Trim Castle and other sites across the country, is the interaction of the people in the here and now. Otherwise, it is like a dusty museum somewhere in the city.