Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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286. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will instruct local authorities to make the record of protected structures in their jurisdiction available on their websites as a separate document to the county development plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56564/22]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Concerning the publication of records of protected structures, Part IV of the Planning and Development Act 2000 gives primary responsibility to local authorities to identify and protect architectural heritage by including particular structures on their respective Records of Protected Structures (RPS). Inclusion on the RPS places a duty of care on the owners and occupiers of protected structures and also gives planning authorities powers to deal with any development proposals affecting them.

Section 51 of the Planning and Development Act (2000), as amended (The ‘Act’), requires that every development plan shall include a record of protected structures, and shall include in that record every structure which is, in the opinion of the planning authority, of such interest within its functional area. Separate to the development plan review process undertaken by a planning authority, section 55 of the Act makes provision for a planning authority to make additions or deletions to the RPS.

A Record of Protected Structures is the record included in a local authority’s Development Plan, correct at the time of publication. It may be amended by the addition or deletion of entries independently of the Development Plan review process. Decisions over the publication of their RPS as posed by the Deputy are for the local authority to decide as it is a function and a decision of the local authority. In that regard, it may be helpful to note that many local authorities have published their respective records of protected structures as separate appendices to their development plans on their websites and may be directly accessed there.