Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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217. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if funding will be provided in 2016 to local authorities or to the Heritage Council for conservation works on protected structures that are on local authority protected structures lists; the amount to be provided; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39850/15]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Funding for the protection of built heritage will continue to be provided by my Department via a number of schemes, which will be either directly administered or delivered through local authorities and agencies such as the Heritage Council.

I recently announced a new €2 million investment scheme for the repair and conservation of protected structures. This fund will operate, via the Local Authorities, on the same model as the very successful Built Heritage Jobs Leverage Scheme (BHJLS), which ran in 2014, and is expected to support a significant number of projects across the country and create employment in the conservation and construction industries, while helping to regenerate urban and rural areas. This announcement will come as a welcome boost to the custodians of heritage properties.

With respect to other possible funding, my Department is currently considering the funding available for the protection and conservation of the built heritage in 2016 in the context of its overall allocation and I will publish details of funding schemes for 2016 as soon as these are finalised.

It will be primarily a matter for the Heritage Council to decide how its funding should be allocated across the range of research, education and conservation programmes it supports annually having regard to competing priorities for limited resources. The announcement of any proposed grant schemes can be monitored on .