Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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432. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the grants available for a church in County Limerick to put in an alarm system in view of the fact the church was broken into recently. [16269/17]

Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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436. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the grants available for a church in County Limerick that requires funding to repair the church roof. [16537/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 432 and 436 together.

Financial support is provided by my Department through a number of structured schemes for the conservation and protection of heritage buildings, including the Built Heritage Investment Scheme, the Structures at Risk Fund and other initiatives operated by the Heritage Council.

The Built Heritage Investment Scheme is a scheme for the repair and conservation of protected structures (i.e. structures on the local authority Record of Protected Structures). The scheme is expected to support over three hundred projects across the country in 2017 and to create employment in the conservation and construction industries, while helping to regenerate urban and rural areas.

Applications from members of the public for this €2 million Scheme were accepted in local authorities throughout the month of February and have now closed.

The Structures at Risk Fund enables conservation works to heritage structures in both private and public ownership, which are protected under the Planning and Development Acts and are deemed to be at significant risk of deterioration. Structures must be on the local authority Record of Protected Structures. The fund, administered through the local authorities, seeks to encourage the regeneration and reuse of heritage properties and to help to secure the preservation of protected structures which might otherwise be lost. Applications from members of the public for the 2017 Structures at Risk Fund were accepted in local authorities throughout the month of February and have now closed.

Details of both these schemes are available on all local authority websites.

In the context of a particular building, especially one which is on the Record of Protected Structures, the best advice for the owner may be to contact the Architectural Conservation Officer from the Local Authority who will be able to advise on the various types of funding available to assist with the building.

The Heritage Council, which my Department funds, also provides grants for the protection and preservation of the built heritage. 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 annually having regard to competing priorities for limited resources. Grant schemes for 2017 are advertised by the Heritage Council on its website www.heritagecouncil.ie.