Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Question 273: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to legal opinions that say it is constitutionally unjust to criminally prosecute landowners who damage recorded national monuments on their lands if they have not been individually notified of these sites on their lands as he has with special areas of conservation and special protection areas and his plans to rectify this situation. [43671/10]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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I assume that the Question refers to opinion submitted to my Department by a non-governmental environmental organisation in relation to monuments listed in the Record of Monuments and Places established under section 12(1) of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act, 1994.

Section 12(3) of the 1994 Act provides that the owner or occupier of a monument or place listed in the Record of Monuments and Places must provide two months notice of any work at or in relation to the monument or place and cannot commence the work within that time without the consent of the Minister. Offence and penalty provisions are also set out in the Act and associated Regulations made under section 12(2) prescribe where maps and lists of monuments are to be exhibited and the arrangements for providing information to the public in that respect.

Any issues in relation to the constitutionality of these provisions would be a matter for determination by the Courts.