Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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25. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will provide an update on the Government’s request that Dublin City Council protect the buildings on Moore Street, Dublin 1, built after the 1916 Rising, by adding them to the Record of Protected Structures. [16837/15]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Statutory protection of the architectural heritage is primarily a matter for the planning authorities under Part IV of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. Under the Act, each planning authority is required, for the purpose of protecting structures or parts of structures which are of special architectural, historical, archaeological, artistic, cultural, scientific, social or technical interest, to maintain a Record of Protected Structures (RPS) and to include in that record every structure which is, in the opinion of the planning authority, of such interest within its functional area.

Section 53(1) of the 2000 Act enables the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht to make recommendations to a planning authority concerning the inclusion of specific structures in its RPS. Ministerial recommendations are generally based on National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) surveys undertaken by my Department of the post-1700 built heritage of the country. Such a survey for the Dublin 1 area was carried out by the NIAH in 2011 and in 2012, on foot of which it was subsequently recommended that 1,680 structures be included on the RPS for Dublin City, of which 494 are additional to the existing RPS for Dublin City.

With regard to Moore Street, the recommendations included:

- the National Monument at Nos. 14, 15, 16 and 17, which are mid eighteen-century buildings associated with the 1916 Rising and on the existing RPS for Dublin City;

- No. 59 Moore Street, which is dated to circa 1900; and

- Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 55, 59, 60-61 and 62 Moore Street, which were built post-1916.

While planning authorities must have regard to Ministerial recommendations under the NIAH, the making of an addition to, or deletion from, an RPS is a final decision for, and a reserved function of, the relevant planning authority.