Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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454. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the timeframe for management plans to be published for Glenveagh, Burren, Connemara and Ballycroy national parks; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34838/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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In May 2017, I decided to broaden the scope of the Draft Burren National Park Visitor and Traffic Management Plan to include Nature Conservation. The Plan has now become the Burren National Park Management Plan and is in draft form for consideration by my officials. I intend also to produce a Management Plan for the Kerry Biosphere Reserve in the context of the recent UNESCO designation. The Department’s short term focus is on conservation objectives for Natura 2000 sites and as such there are no immediate plans to produce management plans for Ballycroy, Glenveagh, Connemara or Wicklow Mountains National Parks. My Department intends however to produce visitor and management plans for its National Parks on an on-going basis subject to the availability of resources. In this context the Deputy will note that in February of this year the Taoiseach formally announced a Strategic Partnership with Fáilte Ireland and the National Parks and Wildlife Service of my Department. One major output of this partnership will be a Tourism Interpretation Masterplan. Work has already commenced on this and the consultants are due to report in the last quarter or 2017. The partnership aims to achieve the shared goal of further developing quality visitor experiences at Ireland’s 6 National Parks and Nature Reserves.