Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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664. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will allocate extra funding to the Heritage Council to compensate for the loss of funding to the Burren Life Wicklow upland project and the Blackstairs farming group, given that such groups play a significant part in rural Ireland, and without this additional funding such projects will not be able to progress. [44138/15]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I am aware of the important work undertaken by the Irish Uplands Forum (IUF) and its members to promote a community-based approach to sustainable development in upland areas and, in particular, their contributions received in framing the National Landscape Strategy 2015-2025, which I launched earlier this year and which will assist in the promotion of landscape objectives nationally. I understand that the IUF received funding of almost €50,000 in recent years, channelled through the Heritage Council, to support heritage education, community and outreach schemes and more recently infrastructure funding.

The Heritage Council, which my Department funds, has been allocated a sum of €5.593 million in 2015 to fund its role of supporting heritage infrastructure and promoting pride and best practice in the conservation and sustainable management of heritage assets. This figure excludes an additional and separate €0.378m allocated to the Heritage Council in 2015 as part-funding for the National Biodiversity Data Centre.

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. My Department’s allocation to the Heritage Council in 2016 will be subject to the normal budgetary processes and final confirmation in the Revised Estimates. However, it is 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 in 2016 and future years, having regard to competing priorities for limited resources.