National Monuments (Amendment) Bill, 1986: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Professor Dooge

I indicated yesterday that I intended to structure my comments on the general problem of the conservation of our architectural heritage under seven headings, following the seven headings used by Professor Frank Mitchell in his presidential address to the Royal Irish Academy on Planning for Irish Archaeology in the Eighties. I had dealt with the question of recording, congratulating the Minister on the fact that some material had appeared, acknowledging that there has been an increase in rapidity but anxious that this was at the expense of an element of superficiality. I want to make it quite clear that when I talk about these inventories and these records as being superficial, I am not in any sense attacking the professional merit of these works, but rather their scope.

At the time I moved the adjournment I was talking about the second of the functions that are necessary, that of protection. I indicated that we can categorise this into protection of monuments above the ground, protection of monuments below the ground and protection of monuments below water. The question of protection of monuments above the ground is really a question of reinforcing what is there in the present code of 1930 and 1954. This has been done to some degree in the present Bill. I welcome very much the new measures in the Bill dealing with the question of protection of monuments underground, artefacts and treasure troves which are underground and also the protection of underwater wrecks. I do not think there is any need to discuss either of these in any great detail. There may well be discussion on Committee Stage — I am sure there will be — in regard to both of them.

In regard to the question of the use of electronic devices for metal detecting there is some concern. Concern has been expressed in regard to the position of genuine geophysical exploration for the purpose of determining minerals and oils. I would like to ask the Minister specifically whether a special licence will be needed from her Department or whether the general licence issued by the Department of Energy will protect persons using electronic methods for the determination of metal deposits and of oil. The suggestion has been made that if the Bill, which now reads "metal and artefacts", referred to "metal artefacts" it would certainly give more protection to those who are engaged in genuine mineral exploration without any loss in regard to the prevention of treasure hunting. I would be glad if the Minister could look at that point between now and Committee Stage. It may well be that the wording in the Bill is necessary for other reasons. If so, we would like to hear these reasons on Committee Stage.

In regard to the question of protection of underwater wrecks, this is most welcome. It is most welcome because it is so late. Indeed this is one of the areas on which action could well have been taken long ago. We have been guilty of national irresponsibility in our failure before this date to take protection in regard to the extremely rich treasures which lie around our shore. It was ironic that one of the classical cases of the recovery of treasure from one of the ships of the Spanish Armada, which went down in Lough Foyle, was done by the Derry Sub-Aqua Club, done under controlled conditions, done in the way in which we would all like to see this work done. This wreck which lies within our territorial waters has been thoroughly explored by the Derry Sub-Aqua Club. Artefacts of great value, not only of intrinsic value, were recovered but it was discovered from the nature of the artefacts that this particular ship was a supply ship. It was a very special type of Armada vessel, one which was intended to support the land operation and gave a great deal of information about the organisation of the Armada itself. Those artefacts have been saved.

One could say that they have been saved for Ireland but they have not been saved for the State over which the writ of this Oireachtas runs for the moment. They have been preserved in Northern Ireland and in this sense the Irish responsibility in regard to this very valuable treasure has been met, but here was a case where we should have acted ourselves. This material was so valuable that it is something whose presence in our National Museum would have filled a gap in our own national collection.

There are many other wrecks of the Armada vessels around our coast. The science of underwater archaeology has advanced greatly in recent years. I would suggest to the Minister that consideration might be given by her Department in collaboration with the Royal Irish Academy to the commencement of a study of this question. Studies do not cost very much and it might be possible, to mount a study on the manner in which modern scientific techniques on underwater archaeology could be applied to the particular case of the ships of the Spanish Armada. I am not asking that a huge salvage operation be mounted but I am asking that a feasibility study be made.

The expertise is there. I suggest working through the Royal Irish Academy, not because I am a member of that Academy pushing its case, but it is the meeting place of all our archaeologists. It is where the archaeologists from all our institutions, both the universities and the museum, meet together, but the Academy is more than that because the Academy has representatives of the other sciences. The important thing in regard to a venture like this would be to make the full use of modern science and technology.

Some ten years ago or so the Royal Society of London and the British Academy came together in a symposium on the use of physics in regard to archaeology, and it was a most successful operation. We have the advantage that our Academy, unlike the position in Britain, is not split between science and humanities so you have within the one body the scientific expertise and the humanities experience. If such a feasibility study were started, whether done directly by the Academy with assistance and slight financial support from the Office of Public Works and representation on the working group from the Office of Public Works, we could in such a feasibility study do useful work which can be done now so that, as I said before, when the time comes when money is available for such work we will be able to go ahead, because we have already lost so much time. As the Minister well knows, these wrecks are open to the plunderers today and this must be corrected.

Senator Mullooly referred to the question of the legal ownership of wrecks and mentioned that perhaps 100 years was rather long. I was very glad to note from the report of the Council of Europe in regard to this question that in Spanish and Portuguese law the period is relatively short that, in fact, the lapse of ownership in a wreck in Spanish and Portuguese law is more clearly defined than in most other countries of Europe. So I do not think there would be undue claims from the Spanish Government in regard to the Armada wrecks and I think we may consider that in this particular case the State's interest in ownership and custody will not be contested. This is an area on which we should move.

There is one point on excavation I must not forget. I probably would forget it because I think it is something for which the Minister carries no personal responsibility, but I could not talk about excavation without referring to the disastrous reduction in the appropriation that was made for excavation in the current year. I am conscious that the decisions were made before the present Minister was responsible. I hope that the interest and enthusiasm she has shown for the subject we are discussing today will mean, in fact, that there is no repetition of that and that at the very least the amounts provided for excavation under the Office of Public Works Vote will be restored to the very meagre level at which it has been during the past few years.

Excavation is important for a number of reasons. There is excavation which is for research purposes which is largely the interest of the professional archaeologist but when we are talking as we are talking in this Bill about questions of urgency — I want to stress continually the questions of urgency in regard to this Bill — it is not academic excavation that is so important as rescue excavation. Here we have had an indifferent record. We must pay tribute to what is being done in regard to rescue in Dublin Castle at the moment, but that seems to absorb all the energies and all the resources of the Office of Public Works at the moment. Again, I urge the Minister in this regard that there should be a plan to be implemented gradually in regard to the question of rescue excavation. We need here a programme because rescue excavation is not simple. We need to have an organisation consisting of as many units as possible in order to carry out the long term excavation of known sites, but that is not the whole of the story. There is also the necessity to have provision for a fire brigade operation in regard to rescue excavation. We all know of cases where at the beginning of a building operation, when the foundations are being excavated, there is the unexpected discovery of archaeological remains. Therefore, any plan for a rescue operation cannot merely be concerned with saying that we have so many units which can be sent out to carry out the rescue operations which we know are going to come within the next two or three years, but we need this emergency provision as well.

The next part of what has to be done in regard to our archaeological heritage is the question of its thorough examination. Here again the lack of resources has hampered those responsible — largely in our National Museum — in carrying out this particular work. Here again it will be necessary to have a plan for the thorough examination of material in situ, the thorough examination of artefacts and their preservation, dating and so on so that we can add to the knowledge of our heritage.

The same remarks apply also to the question of conservation. The amount of work which can be done in conservation by our National Museum is meagre indeed, and we are lucky that we have the backing of the British Museum who have been active in the conservation and the restoration of many of our more important finds. We are falling well behind what might be expected. For example, we would not expect provision to be made in this country for conservation of archaeological remains on anything like the scale of the British Museum but perhaps we should look north to Belfast and ask ourselves how do we compare with what is being done in the Ulster Museum. Here we have an appropriate yardstick. What do we find when we make this comparison? We find that some years ago the Ulster Museum was given the space — about 6,000 square feet — the staff and the full equipment necessary for doing all the most intricate work of conservation and restoration.

In drawing up a plan for archaeology in Ireland — not in the eighties as Professor Frank Mitchell said, because that time is lost — but for the nineties, there must be a thorough plan in this regard. Even when all of this has been done, when the excavation, examination and the conservation are complete, there remains the always laborious work of documentation and publication. Documentation is particularly important and Senator Mullooly, when speaking last night, mentioned the excellent work that is being done by local museums throughout the country. It is of great importance that there should be a full documentation of these, that there should be a full national documentation centre, presumably in our National Museum, in which all of the information, about what arises in the records, what is being excavated and what may still be in private collections, can be stored.

Our National Museum has no catalogue. The last full catalogue that was made of the Irish treasures, as far as I know, was that made by Sir William Wilde in 1857. I am talking of a catalogue in the sense of an illustrated catalogue which is the appropriate type of catalogue for such materials. We have had partial catalogues. The publication of the National Treasures of Ireland which formed a catalogue for the special exhibition which was shown in many countries and shown here in our own museum showing some of the treasures of the National Museum, Trinity College, Dublin, and of the Royal Irish Academy was indeed an excellent volume, but we need something more than this. In fact, I would suggest that in planning for archaeology and planning for how we should handle our national heritage in the nineties in regard to this ancient material, we need modern documentation.

In other words, it is no longer a question of an illustrated book of the type produced by Sir William Wilde in the 19th century, what we need is a computerised information base in which the information on all that is excavated, all that is exhibited in the National Museum and in local museums and also material of key Irish interest which is available in museums all over the world, all of these should be gathered together in a single documentation centre. To organise and in particular to search such a documentation system means that it would have to be a computerised system. Again, I am not suggesting that such a system be set up next year or the year after. First, the thinking of those responsible for policy should turn in this direction and feasibility studies can be made. I am asking for a plan and unless we have a plan in this regard, we will be failing in our national duty.

There is the final question of publication. There are many forms of publication that arise from the discovery and examination of monuments and the discovery of artefacts. Here there has to be a new look. The material that affects our interpretation of our early history and our pre-history has to be made available to scholars and then to the public. There is publication in another sense on which we have been particularly lax. I want to call attention to the meaning of the word "publication". The word "publication" is defined in the dictionary as "to make public". We tend to think, in the age dominated by the printing press, that the only method of publication is to print something on paper and to circulate it. But when we come to the question of the publication of our national heritage, it is more than this. It is to make it available to the public, not only through reading but by making it visible to them in its entirety.

There are many examples in other countries of the use of imagination where archaeological remains have been discovered when buildings are to be built. Imagination has been used in order to leave in place, at their historic lower level, these monuments open to the public and to build above them. What has been done in the city of York is one example. What has been done in Cologne with the Roman remains is another. There are many others throughout Europe. This is publication in a real sense. This is making public this part of our heritage to those who will never read the proceedings of the Society of Antiquities of Ireland or similar literature. It can bring home to them in its fullness what was the nature, what was the reality of life in past ages. In this sense perhaps we would be going back to the function of the stained glass window of the mediaeval cathedral which told the story of the Old and the New Testament to those who were unable to read. This part of a publication is part of what has to be done.

I return finally in summary to saying what I said at the outset that I welcome this Bill for what is in it and I express my disappointment at the fact that it is so limited in scope. As I repeat my main remarks, I am glad to do so in the presence of Deputy John Donnellan who was responsible for a Private Members' Bill in 1980, a National Heritage Bill. I am sure the Cathaoirleach will allow me to repeat in his presence what I said in the opening speech, that that Bill was defeated on a vote in Dáil Éireann on the grounds that something more comprehensive was needed.

What we have today, six years later, is not much more comprehensive than what was in Deputy Donnellan's Private Members' Bill. That Bill provided for the control of sea wrecks. That Bill provided for the control of electronic devices. Thanks be to goodness we now have those in a Bill. We hope this Bill will be rapidly passed. I would like to say a word of congratulations to the Minister of State, Deputy John Donnellan. He was one politician who was alive to these absolutely critical problems before this action was taken. Deputy John Donnellan's Bill was voted down in Dáil Éireann on the basis that what was needed was something more comprehensive. I have indicated in my speech that of course something more comprehensive was needed, but that is no reason not to deal with the present crisis. Let us welcome what is here in the Bill. Let us welcome it for what it can do, but let us realise that it is only crisis management and that much more must be done.

In regard to the operation of the Bill, I noted that the Minister of State in her speech said she hoped that more attention would be paid to the new Historical Monuments Advisory Committee than to the old National Monuments Advisory Committee. May I echo that? It will not be difficult to pay more attention. I believe that one of our weaknesses under the old code was that the advice of that advisory committee was undervalued. I sincerely trust that the determination of the Minister of State that the new advisory committee will be used effectively, will be listened to, will be carried through. The new advisory committee which is being set up should be able to help greatly in giving advice on the points I have raised about feasibility studies in regard to the application of science to under water archaeology; on the question of the planning of a proper excavation programme, both a long term and a rescue programme and in regard to many other matters.

There is one comment I would like to make and that is that I believe in regard to the five extra members that the Minister should take great care to balance this committee. The structure under the section at the moment in regard to the new committee is that it contains one representative from each of a number of academic bodies. The tendency of every one of those academic bodies — Trinity College, University College, Dublin, University College, Cork and University College, Galway — will be to appoint as their representative their professor of archaeology. This is the inevitable way in which the academic council will make these appointments. In making the five additional appointments, the Minister should be careful to look beyond the archaeologists themselves. The architects also have a direct nomination.

It has been found in other countries that in modern archaeology there are a great number of problems, not only the scientific problems, the type I have already mentioned. Among the extra five there should be a scientist and also there is a place for my own discipline of civil engineering. It has been found here that the question both of the original structural design and the present structural safety of ancient monuments is looming larger and larger particularly in cases where remains of ancient works are left open to public view. There is a real role for this advisory committee. In so far as it is possible, this committee should be widely based. There will, of course, be a majority of archaeologists on it. As we go into the nineties, if we are to preserve our heritage in a manner worthy of handing on that heritage to the next century, then it is not a job for archaeologists alone.

I welcome the Bill. I welcome the section controlling underseas wrecks. I welcome the section on electronic devices. I welcome the other minor amendments and I do hope that the advisory committee plays a larger role. In parenthesis may I say that the Minister for Finance is to be congratulated on reconstituting the old committee and at the same time condemned for the fact that he neglected to perform that statutory function for such a long time. The Minister of State has said in regard to the present committee that half of its membership will retire so it will have a continuity. The old National Monuments Advisory Committee did not have a continuity. It was not because all its members went out of office on the same day. It was because the Minister responsible did not appoint a new committee. The Minister did not carry out his statutory duty to do this. I hope that such treatment of an advisory committee is not repeated under the present Act.

I hope the reduction which was made in the amount available for excavation which is so essential in the training of the young archaeologists is not repeated and I hope it will not be too long until the Minister can report to us, not necessarily in the form of legislation but possibly in the form of a report, that plans have been drawn up and feasibility studies have been made so that we, in our time, can rival what of our predecessors of the 19th century who under much more difficult circumstance with much less knowledge of what was involved, much less technique available to them, managed to preserve our heritage. Our record since we became a State in preserving our national heritage has not been a good one. It can hardly get worse. I am confident it will improve but I do hope that improvement will be of such a significance that we can all be proud of it.

Mr. Lanigan

I welcome the opportunity which this Bill presents to us. Many of our national monuments have been damaged, many of our archaeological artefacts have been sent out of the country and there is a continuous rape of our national heritage. It is opportune then that we should get time to discuss amendments to the National Monuments (Amendment) Bill. I suppose the impetus for this Bill was the finding by electronic device of the Derrynaflan chalice and other artefacts. There is no doubt that the use of electronic devices has created many problems. The use of these detection devices has made it possible for amateurs to dig in places where there may or may not be articles of value from the past. In many places where diggings have taken place by these amateurs irreparable damage has been done not just to archaeological sites but to the artefacts which were contained in these sites. There has to be control of these electronic devices and I am glad to see the Minister has increased the fines and has laid restrictions on where these devices may be used. If we read right through the legislation it could be said that there is now virtually a total ban on the use of these devices because they cannot be used in known archaeological sites except with the permission of the Office of Public Works or the Commissioners and I doubt very much that permission will be granted easily.

The fact that this legislation is going through will not prevent the use of these devices. There is one weakness in the Bill. At the end of the memorandum, it states:

The current year's provision for National Monuments in Vote 10 (Public Works & Buildings) is £3,200,000. No additional costs will arise in the current year, or in 1987, from the enactment of this legislation.

It is not possible at this stage to forecast with any degree of accuracy if any additional costs will arise, or if additional staff will be required in later years. It is nonsense to be bringing a Bill before the House which implies that there will be restrictions placed on the use of metal detectors and other such items, or that we will have a proper survey carried out of the antiquities of Ireland when it is quite plainly stated that no extra money will be made available next year. It is not possible to foresee whether any extra money will be forthcoming in the future. Will the Minister let me know how we can have the sections of this Bill enacted if we are not to have extra cash? The situation has not changed since Professor Mitchell stated that the National Museum of Ireland remains obstinately in the 19th century and one of Ireland's main archaeological tasks of the eighties must be to spruce up the museum so that when we enter the 21st century the National Museum will march forward into it in an equal rank with the best museums in the world.

Since 1978 conditions in the National Museum have deteriorated rapidly. There has been no improvement in the National Museum and people who have been visiting it during the past few years will have seen, fewer and fewer items on display. I understand that the national treasures section of the museum will be opening shortly. Concern was expressed in the Dáil yesterday at the fact that there was to be an entry fee. I do not like the idea an entry fee to a museum which purports to show our national heritage. Nevertheless unless moneys are got the museum will deteriorate at a rapid rate. The building is not up to the required standard. We need a major revamping of the National Museum.

It is disgraceful to me coming from Kilkenny to think that the Royal Society of Antiquaries collection which was brought from Kilkenny to the museum many years ago is virtually intact in the boxes in which it was brought to Dublin. There are tons of very valuable material from the Royal Society of Antiquaries which was the predecessor of the museum. Most of those artefacts are down in the dungeon or are being stored in various places by the Office of Public Works. This is not something that we should be proud of. We do not know what damage has been caused by keeping this material in containers which were never meant to be containers for long term storage.

The situation regarding the museum is deplorable. Indeed Professor Mitchell said in 1978 that the number of staff and the payment of staff in the National Museum are disgraceful in comparison with the remuneration and conditions of employment of the people who work in museums in the North.

The rape of our archaeological sites is a continuing one. The rape in the past was not always deliberate. It was estimated that 30 per cent to 40 per cent, or perhaps a higher percentage, of our major archaeological sites suffered because of the intensification of farming in the sixties and seventies. There had been no proper documentation of our sites — I will not say because of the lethargy of the Department officials involved — because there were too few officials involved in the documentation. National archaeological sites disappeared overnight and only a very small number of artefacts were recovered. Many of these are in local museums but, unfortunately, because no proper excavations took place the sites will never be properly assessed. This is a tremendous loss not alone to Ireland but also from a European historical perspective.

Deliberate rape which took place in the past is being continued and is growing dangerously. This rape is being continued by the major auction houses in London who are represented in Ireland by so-called knights of former titled gentlemen who have no feeling for Ireland, and who allow many items of great historical importance to be taken away without proper care and attention and without proper documentation in many cases. Even if we considered the archaeological sites and the artefacts found in them as being of financial value that would not be enough. We have not yet developed our tourism potential in the presentation of our archaeological sites or our fantastic neolithic and prehistoric history. As Senator Dooge said, we have to be extremely careful about the preservation, excavation and examination of documentation relating to these sites.

We can read of the rape that took place in Egypt at the end of the last century when the British and French so-called archaeologists opened up ancient sites in which there were magnificent tombs in which the treasures of Egypt, the Tutankhaman treasures and other treasures were found in the Valley of the Kings and Queens. Because of the opening up of the ancient monuments of Egypt, which are now deteriorating at an enormous rate, the erosion that has taken place in these national monuments is of a very worrying nature. The same will happen in Ireland unless we are extremely careful about how we treat our monuments. Of course, the best way to deal with archaeological sites would be to leave them intact: excavate, examine and replace, or as Senator Dooge said: excavate, examine, document, photograph adjacent to a site, as is being done in England, and build replicas or display areas in which pictures or mock-ups of the actual sites can be seen.

There has to be a total change in our attitude to our monuments. I accept that the Office of Public Works and the Minister in charge down through the years have done everything possible to preserve and conserve them. They have not been getting the necessary moneys or staff from the Department of Finance to do the job that can and should be done.

I would not like to take away the rights of people to property which they have acquired legitimately but in the Bill it now appears as if property rights can be taken away. We are not exactly taking away the property rights but we are taking away the use of these properties on which there are archaeological finds. The removal of national monuments to museums for preservation is an aspiration with which I would agree. Nevertheless there is no point in allowing the removal of national monuments to museums when we do not have a museum capable of accepting them. Unless we address ourselves to this major problem, much of what is contained in this Bill will not be enforced and, if it is not enforced, it is useless legislation.

A question was raised about the scientific evaluation of sites and the problems that have arisen because of the use of metal detectors. I agree that there are other ways of evaluating sites by electronic means other than by the metal detectors. I hope the Department will examine what is being done in other countries. With the military surveillance methods that abound in the world at present and when it is possible, through satellites, to actually identify buildings on the ground and to pick out particular minerals, I fail to see why it should not be possible to get a configuration of sites which might be of architectural interest and value and have them assessed.

In relation to lack of staff and cash resources, the setting up of the Historic Monuments Council, while good in itself, will not change the fact that on the ground we just do not have enough people. The Office of Public Works have done tremendous work in the area in which I live on the caves of Dunmore which are now of major national tourist interest.

The seven churches at Kells have been revamped and brought back to a glory that has to be seen to be believed. The work they have done on the Rock of Cashel, Kilkenny Castle, Rothe House and various other places is of the highest quality. Indeed were it not for the Office of Public Works, many of the old skills in carpentry and building would have been lost. I sincerely hope that the passing of this Bill will give an impetus to an improvement in the image of the Office of Public Works, and an increase in their allocation of £3,200,000 so that they will be able to continue with the job they are so capable of doing.

It is time that our schools had our national heritage and archaeology in the curriculum in a more structured way. There are some schools which do a good job on this subject; others ignore it completely. If at primary school level a greater awareness was engendered in the pupils of the need to preserve what is good in their own counties, in their own area, parish or garden, it would have a snowball effect. There would be a greater awareness of the need to upgrade the services in the National Museum to the degree of modernity that is needed.

Close to our important national sites we should have centres to which children could be brought and informed about them. I am sure this could be done very easily. We have seen the growth of summer camps for children. Many of these camps are spots based but some are based on educational matters as well. I do not think it would be beyond the bounds of possibility for the Department of Education, in conjunction with the Office of Public Works, to devise a scheme whereby an appreciation programme could be initiated which would be of enormous benefit, not alone in giving young people a knowledge of the value of archaeological sites but also in maintaining a preservation programme. The more people know about the value of these things, the more they appreciate them.

The Minister of State said that the work of identification has been proceeding at a more rapid pace recently. On 27 May last she launched the archaeological inventory of sites, monuments and records for Counties Meath, Carlow and Wicklow and reports on the urban archaeological surveys of Counties Laois and Offaly and Dublin city. Further sites and monuments records for Donegal and Wexford are to follow later this year, and by the end of the decade such records will be available for the entire country. The availability of these surveys to planners, to farm development officers and to the public generally will make the task of protecting our heritage much easier. I am glad the Minister thinks everything is going well in this area. There is no doubt that there is a need to have these surveys and inventories carried out as quickly as possible.

We are all too aware of the rate at which urban development schemes and rural development programmes are sweeping away the structural records of the past. Some of these structures are recorded in outline on our ordnance survey maps, but the bulk of them are not recorded. The demand for a full survey of our national monuments goes back almost 100 years to 1888. In two years time we will have the anniversary of that demand. Over 50 years ago Mac Alister called for such a survey, a call which was repeated by Leask and Ó Ríordáin. Continued pressure by the National Monuments Advisory Council resulted in the setting up of a survey unit for the Republic in the Office of Public Works. Eighteen years have gone by and what has been achieved? The Counties of Louth, Meath and Monaghan have been surveyed. On 27 May the Minister launched the archaeological inventory of County Louth. Work is proceeding actively in Westmeath — I do not see Westmeath mentioned here — and preliminary work has been done in Cavan and Longford. There is no mention here of Cavan and Longford. Nothing of what has been done has been published. That has changed to the extent now that County Louth has been published. The rate of progress has been far too slow especially at a time when our monuments are ever more rapidly disappearing. Present progress appears to be about six or seven years per county even without accompanying publication. At this rate the Twenty-six Counties will not be completed until after the year 2000 AD. I would ask the Minister of State if she agrees that what was said in 1978 or what is now in the preliminary to the Bill is correct? If we do not have the survey completed and the listings of the archaeological sites made it is extremely difficult for anybody to say definitely what is a site of major importance or what is not a site of major importance. Sites of importance or unimportance are very hard to define.

When I was digging the foundations of my own house in 1960 we came by a dedication stone for a church which had been on the site. We were able to bring out the altar stone and the dedication stone which were dated 1780. It was by chance that those two items were found. When I say that it is very hard to define what is a site of major or minor importance I literally mean that. There is not a site in Ireland which is not potentially valuable in terms of our archaeological history so that we have to be extremely careful. The sooner the surveys of all our counties are carried out the better. The progress to date has been much too slow. If the surveys are carried out, then the register mentioned in the Bill, can be set up. That will have repercussions for certain farmers who will find that part of their land cannot be used to its maximum in a farming sense. Nevertheless it is important that we have this register set up as soon as possible.

I hope that even a task force could be brought in to do this work. The memorandum makes the point that money is not available. There are a number of well-educated young graduates coming out of our colleges at present who could be involved at very little cost in the surveying and in the registering of sites. These young people have cost the State large sums of money for their education and unfortunately quite a number of them have no jobs and they could be used for the good of the country in doing part of the work which the Department are not capable of doing at present because of lack of staff. In 1978 Professor G.F. Mitchell said that present progress appeared to be about six years per county even without accompanying publication. At this rate the 26 counties would not be completed until the year 2000 AD.

I understand that more ambitious plans are being brought forward which envisage a task force of 30, about five times the existing staff, completing the work in ten years. I wonder if any movement has been made to recruit this task force. How many people are actually working at present on the surveys and what is the Minister's reasonable suggestion as to when these surveys will be completed? From T.S. Elliot's Four Quartets I quote Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time...

And all shall be well and

All manner of things shall be well

When the tongues of flame are infolded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

The reasons for exploration and the study of archaeology and artefacts are just to find out how our ancestors lived, how they existed, what types of food they ate, what type of artefacts they used in their normal daily lives. When we talk about archaeological finds and artefacts of value, artefacts do not have to be terribly old to be of value to us in assessing how our ancestors lived. Too many of the basic farm implements which were used throughout the country — even up to the middle of this century before mechanisation came in — have left the country. They have been lost to us, they have been burnt, they have been thrown out. Except in a small number of rural areas no attempt is being made to bring together in a folk museum type of way, a full grouping of the various implements both for inside and outside the house in the farming situation. We have a small folk museum outside. Limerick in County Clare and there may be one or two others scattered throughout the country. On a national scale I do not think anything has been done to preserve what was in the countryside prior to mechanisation.

This Bill does not go far enough because moneys are not forthcoming. I keep harping on this but all the aspirations in this Bill will come to nothing unless the moneys are forthcoming. It could be said by the Minister for Finance that the Office of Public Works is not very important in the national scale of things, that the study of archaeology, that the preservation of our ancient sites is not a priority at a time of high unemployment and of many other problems which face the country; nevertheless when one looks at the large numbers of people now visiting our ancient sites and when the tourism implications of archaeology are made known, the Minister for Finance should come up with more money. In an article in 1985 Elgy states:

There has been a 10 per cent increase in the number of tourists visiting ancient monuments and heritage sites, or a total of three-quarters of a million people, despite the bad weather this year, say the Office of Public Works.

Over 750,000 people were catered for at the 22 parks and monuments where Guide and Information Services are given. Out of the 150,000 ancient monuments in the country the Office of Public Works looks after 700, of which 48 are currently undergoing major restoration works — including the Skellig Rock, Knowth Tumulus, Mellifont Abbey and Parke's Castle in Sligo.

It is disgraceful to think that there are 150,000 ancient monuments and that only 700 of those are being looked after by the Office of Public Works. Obviously there cannot be a presence by the Office of Public Works at every monument because some of these monuments are scattered, they are small and they might not seem to be of major importance. In the past few weeks we read in the newspapers of a farmer in County Clare taking ancient stones from a graveyard to use as material for building a house. A priest is supposed to have taken ancient stones from a graveyard for "safe keeping"— I reckon it will not be too long before they are sold on the American market. We read again this week of stones being taken from another ancient monument.

It is important that we have as much of a presence as is possible at our major sites. There should be a continuous assessment, policing and review of the other sites so that if there is a rape of these sites it will be found out before too much damage is done. I am not sure how these sites can be inspected or if inspectors can be employed for this purpose but something will have to be done if, as it appears, only 700 out of 150,000 sites are being looked after in any way.

The protection of these sites is important for us all. The rape was well illustrated in a book entitled The Power and the Glory written by David Hanley who is well known to radio listeners when he was discussing in a novel which he had written the filming of the history of the High Crosses of Ahenny on the border between Tipperary and Kilkenny. When the film crew went up to film, the truck driver put the vehicle into reverse instead of into forward gear and the ancient High Crosses of Ahenny were laid on their backs. The director or producer of the film said: “We had better get out of here fast”. I am not suggesting these are the sentiments felt by many people for national monuments but there are a number of people who do not give a damn about our heritage and instances such as I have described have happened in the past.

When discussing the High Crosses of Ahenny we are talking about monuments which are older than the Tutankhamen tomb or would predate a lot of what are considered to be the glories of Egypt. The High Crosses of Ahenny would be of a much earlier age group than Abu Simbel on which the United Nations, before the building of the high dam at Aswan, spent over $40 million in raising the monuments there out of danger from the waters of the Nile. We are not prepared, according to the financial memorandum, to increase the amount of moneys available to the public works and buildings section of the Office of Public Works. The Government are not prepared to increase their funding. They will not give a guarantee it will be increased next year and have stated it is not possible to say whether any moneys will be forthcoming in the future.

The article by Professor Mitchell in 1978 is the only information available about monuments. It is very difficult to get information on what happens in the area of national monuments. The only information in the Library here of relevance were a couple of lectures given by Laurence Flanagan of the Ulster Museum on museum legislation and finds in Northern Ireland and Raghnall Ó Floinn's talks from the National Museum on the same subject, museum legislation and finds in the Irish Republic. There is very little documentation available on the problems associated with this whole area. I am not sure if the Office of Public Works have a bibliography which could be used by anybody who wishes to do research on what is happening in the area. Can the Minister say where information can be got so that people can be kept more informed as to what is going on in this whole area?

Reading through this 1978 document gives one a sense of despondency because a lot of what we are talking about doing now has been already done in the North and elsewhere. I am not suggesting that everything in the North is perfect but we are going to have to adjust our sights drastically in the South. I will give a further quotation:

... The sheltered slopes around Mellifont attract may picnic parties and the grass and the cloister becomes a football pitch, if not a campsite. Clonmacnoise has lost several of its carved tomb-slabs. Strings of boats carry queues of sightseers to the Skelligs; stones are tossed from the monuments into the sea. Motorcycles race up the slopes of the Norman mound at Fore.

What was said in 1978 is even more relevant today. From my information there have been actual motorcycle races around the area at Fore which is an area I would never have known about except for the Seanad election campaign. It is one of the most beautiful areas and it is only a potential Senator who might find it.

Over the years we have prided ourselves that access to our monuments is free to all but with increasing numbers of visitors, many of a type who feel no reverence for the past and its monuments, the Office of Public Works will have to start thinking about protective fencing, regular guardians, fixed hours of opening and suitable entrance charges. We do not wish to stop people from visiting our monuments but we want to ensure that when they visit them that they do not rape them. We must ensure that more than 700 of our national monuments out of the 150,000 recorded are protected. There must be a better system of inspection and of protection for them.

I mentioned that we have well educated graduates who could be used in an AnCO-type training programme, in the evaluation of sites and in the documentation of sites. That is something that should be given very serious consideration. With supervision young people could be used for that work. If the money is not forthcoming in the normal way of employing more people, they could be used through an AnCO-sponsored course. In the same way as there is a marketing course through a marketing department in UCD, why not have an archaeology evaluation documentation type of course which could be co-ordinated between the Department of Archaeology in UCD, Trinity College and the National Museum. You could get a lot of work done in a short time by using that method.

The main points made by Professor Mitchell are still relevant. The full survey must be carried out. A network should be provided of archaeological presences to work with the local planning departments in surveying the archaeological potential of areas marked out for development, to undertake occasional small-scale rescue excavations and to maintain contact with local archaeological sites, to carry out major excavation to threatened sites within the framework of priorities at national and local level and to maintain a mobile unit ready to move at short notice to any site at which an unexpected but important discovery has been made. That could be brought into being without much expense, all it needs is for someone to organise it. As the Office of Public Works operate throughout the country it should not be to difficult at any point to mobilise a group to get into a site which is threatened because of excavation works for building, farming or whatever.

We must develop techniques for rapid recording of discoveries and provide without a viable over-expenditure full scientific support both during and after excavation and prepare for publication reports of all excavations to ensure that the archives and the objects from each excavation are deposited in a well organised museum. The aspirations in that should not be too hard to apply. The official attitude to our monuments must change and legislation with effective teeth, which would give real security, must be introduced and there must be a national fund to buy monuments.

It was suggested that in 1977 over £500 million worth of land changed hands in the Republic of Ireland and that stamp duty was paid possibly to the extent of about £50 million. If only a small proportion of that could be put aside for the preservation, purchase and excavation of national sites a lot could be done in a very short time.

This legislation is important. It is late. Unfortunately, unless there is money available, it will not have very much bite. I sincerely hope that the Minister will try everything in her power to increase the moneys available to the Office of Public Works and to the commissioners, the council and the registrars, to get the work it is intended to do completed as soon as possible so that our very considerable national heritage can be preserved.

Mr. M. Higgins

I would like to speak rather briefly because I know a number of Senators wish to speak. A number of the main points of the Bill have been expanded from the Minister's own interesting speech and by Senators such as Senator Dooge and Senator Lanigan.

I would like to make reference to one point Senator Lanigan made on which I strongly agree with him. It is on the question of an approach centred on education. Just over 20 years ago I recall visiting the Museum of Natural History in Mexico city and also its museum of modern art. At that time it was a requirement within the school system that all of the schools within a certain radius of the city had to come to the museum. Without being directed they chose particular objects which interested them, for example, aspects of Mayan civilisation or different parts and components of other sub-civilisations. They drew these things and later they wrote about them. The different age groups had tasks appropriate to them.

It has always shocked me that in Ireland, a country that seemed so obsessed with the past, the actual commitment to the recovery of the story of the past has been so badly provided for in all the history of the State. The training in relation to records which we discussed, the keeping of records when we discussed the National Archives Bill, revealed a situation that was little less than scandalous in relation to the provision made in the history of this State for the adequate training of archivists and the employment of qualified archivists in different parts of the State. Indeed, there was more than just neglect involved and even something stronger than philistinism. There was a rejection involved in the sense that what was new and contemporary had, of its own nature, to be something that had to challenge the past. In relation to the records there was this comprehensive commitment to secrecy and furtiveness, upon which the Irish tradition of the past is based, rather than on any open recovery of information or knowledge.

In turning to the matter specifically covered by the legislation before us, I want to make another rather strong point. We are discussing this legislation at a time when we have heard possibly one of the crudest, populist, most ignorant and philistine suggestions to come for a long time. That — I repeat all of the words very carefully — rather crude and ignorant and philistine suggestion is that we should abolish the Office of Public Works. It has not come from the Minister of State. It has not come from any of the usual parties. It has come from a party hoping to capture the imagination of the people and build a new republic. I spent this summer and many other summers travelling with my children to sites which have been developed by the Office of Public Works. One thing that has always struck me with a sense of shame as a citizen is the contrast between the work of the people who work for the State, those who worked with stone and wood and iron, the designers and architects — all employees of the State who restored one site after another and who provided one piece of work after another — and the private property owners who surrounded those sites, who would not provide, out of their private resources, a litter bin. We are being asked by this view to limit the Office of Public Works; to continually bear in mind the extended rights of all of these people who, although not maliciously — many through sheer ignorance — did not feel it useful or right to do anything about things that did not belong exclusively to themselves.

I remember as a child talking to people about finds in the County Clare area. People thought it valuable if you could remove something at that time and bring it into your own house, have it there and put the stamp of your own personal property on it. Senator Lanigan is absolutely right; in what civilsied country would there not be an outcry about this man in Sligo who gathers pieces of important artefacts from our past, who sells them or tries to remove them out of the country, a person who is supposed to be committed to things spiritual, God bless us? They are robbing, not us who are alive, but the past and the future of their own story. What a seedy person. There should be a way to deal with people like that.

I noted some people wondering if we should speak about matters like this. We should speak about them. Why should the people who are involved in the preservation of national monuments have to indulge in antics rather like "Hill Street Blues", driving around in cars, trying to catch the delinquent where he drops the monuments off and so forth. I agree strongly with Senator Lanigan that such behaviour reveals an aspect in the public attitude towards preservation which I wish was not there.

We have to try to get back to basics, to teach a better attitude towards the question of national monuments, towards identification, preservation and knowledge. In fact, I would very explicitly relate what I am saying to the Minister's speech in that sense where she identifies two stages. She speaks about identification and preservation as twin aims. Both prior and pertaining to that is the whole question of consciousness and knowledge. The point I was making in my opening remarks about countries where this had been attempted was that the earlier the child, in any part of the school system is made aware, through a sense of wonderment, of the richness of what surrounds them, the better. This is not easy in Ireland where education is about the destruction of wonderment.

Children have a natural sense of wonderment. I said this in 1974 when I spoke on the wildlife Bill. I said: contrast the attitude of a child in handling any piece of nature or any living thing with that of an adult. Very often you will find there is an enormous difference. The adult has grown and matured to be limited and shrunken as a person, not able to see the full richness of what surrounds him.

The more we do for our children in encouraging the creation of opportunities for them to discover the richness of their environment the better. There are ways of doing this. The Department of Education and the Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works can only relay messages to Departments. I am sure the Minister of State would agree with me that, if the spirit of this Bill is to be realised, it will require an entirely new attitude at the level of curriculum and it will require a kind of teacher — and there are brave, good, wonderful teachers; I had one of them very long ago — who take the children out of the classroom and bring them to monuments to explain them and develop the children's interest in them. Education should be a discovery like that. For example, there is a very excellent book about a teacher in the Wicklow area who brought her children all along the course of a river, tracing the river from its source to the time it met the sea and looking at the reconstruction of the social world and the symbolic world that the river had flowed past over different ages. The monuments referred to in this Bill are the symbols of our past, present and future. They are not bits of stone.

This raises a question provoked by the excellent article by Professor Mitchell — quoted by Senator Lanigan — in his presidential address to the Royal Irish Academy 1978 "Planning for Irish Archaeology in the Eighties". There are things we have been willing to allow into our symbol system and there are other things that we have not. For example, when one looks at the policy on archaeological science and monuments in different countries, one of the things that strikes one is the growing appreciation of the lives of ordinary people. Looking at Irish attitudes — and I have tried to look at them by looking at Dáil debates over a time — it was very interesting to see that people began by being interested in preserving symbols of what is strong and powerful. It has been a 20th century development that people have been interested in preserving the way of life of ordinary people. The great advantage and great achievements of the Ulster Folk Museum and places like it have been that quite early on they were committed to reconstructing the story of ordinary emigrants, not only the stories of powerful people, stories of people who were snatched from their environment by different forces of economic circumstances. That is why it is important that where the policy exists and must be developed, that it should be developed in such a generous way that it can incorporate the full richness of social life.

I should like to make a few small points that are positive. In the take-up of university subjects few subjects have had more of a revival in modern times than archaeology. Many, many more students are asking to take archaeology even with sociology which I teach in a university myself, seeing a natural connection between the social life forms of previous times and the present. I noticed in particular that, among adult students who are returning in mid-life or in later life to university and third level institutions, where it is available they are opting for civilisation courses and for archaeology courses. That is indicating in a very interesting way that the moral sentiment of the people is ahead of the political reality because if we were to translate that into reality we would be talking about expanding the Office of Public Works instead of getting rid of them, as some few people suggest and we would be giving them more money to hire staff and to have buildings.

Many people criticise the staff of the National Museum at times but they are very unhappy to have to gather into an inadequate, centralised system material they would love to have displayed centrally, regionally and locally. Many wonderful people are dedicated members of the National Museum and other institutions and have given their whole lives to what must be a most alienating and frustrating experience for them, that is, to know the value, story and richness of what is available and to know that it cannot go on display because neither the resources nor the space is available for its development. While people speak about doing something useful and so forth, about employing young people and so on, I feel there are many people who would be available and who would support the sentiments of this Bill.

If it were not for the State, what would have been preserved in Ireland? I want the people who believe they should get rid of State preservation agencies to answer that question for the public. There are the enlightened few. I have known them for the past 20 years only, and they were there before that. There are a few dozen private individuals in Ireland who are interested in preservation. I repeat "a few dozen". The great work that has gone on has been paid for by the citizens and it has been done by the employees of the State. I am proud of the State and of the State's employees and of the public servants who did that work. I am just as ashamed of the undeveloped, uncivilised philistines and private individuals who neglected what they had and despoiled what was near them, and now try to rob what does not belong to them and offer it for sale. The previous speaker said he welcomed the Bill and I agree with him, but let us have the resources made available to put the Bill into proper effect.

Let me try to remain as positive as I can because one could get very depressed after asking for resources to be made available when the money has not been made available. I do not see the staff being made available either. I do not believe one should do these things solely for tourism and hope for the funding from solely private sources because I do not think it will come for that reason. I think one would have got one's priorities wrong. What you have to do is to take the line of Professor Mitchell and others and the people who made the case 100 years earlier, and go for a national inventory of what you have for your own sake so that you know what you have and then you develop to different stages different aspects of that for different purposes. Certainly, some parts of it are amenable immediately to development with a sophisticated tourist spin-off. But you must get the cart in the right place in relation to what the requirements are and in relation to what the commitment of resources must be.

I strongly support the calls made for even an expansion of the national survey and the publication of such results as are available. We must be positive about it. Why is not more use being made of modern techniques of photography, video, film and publication in relation to expanding the awareness of monuments? May I give an example of what I have in mind? I have four children attending primary school. They take things into school sometimes for a nature corner or something like that. Why has it been so impossible to have a small library in every school in which there could be slides of all the monuments of the surrounding area and others that might interest the children. They could look at these, hear the story of them, go out and visit them and so forth. Why is it not possible to have slides of the pictures in the National Gallery so that the children might look at them and become familiar with them before they visit them in the National Gallery? Why is it not possible to have videos? Of all the countries in Europe, we have more videos per head of the population than anybody else even if we have an enormously high unemployment rate. Can we not make videos of the heritage that surrounds us, have those videos available in schools and lend them out to the children? Why could there not be a time, such as on wet days when children cannot play outside, to look at these videos? Why can there not be that approach towards it? Is that not the way to encourage a greater appreciation and a greater respect for one's heritage and one's environment? Instead of that, we half kill appreciation of many of these things and by the time the child drags himself or herself to the gates of the place and is told the story so boringly and so on, the beauty of the work of the craftsmen is sometimes lost. I would love the children to see these people working with stone and so forth and that is the way to go about it. When you have got it right at that level, that is when you will have people respecting what surrounds them. That is when it will not be safe for these robbers to steal parts of our national heritage.

The Bill makes a number of specific provisions which, unfortunately, are related to punitive measures. It is a sad commentary on the times we live in and how we look at our national monuments that the greater part of the Bill deals with stopping people moving into protected sites with implements which will enable them to damage the site and its assets. This is sad, but true. There are enormous stakes here.

I do not want to take from what has been a breakthrough by some people in the Department. The definition of a new concept of archaeological area will facilitate the implementation of work in this area. The concept of historic monument as defined is valuable as is the qualification that this is not limited to monuments that can be protected and on which work by the Office of Public Works can be carried out. The national importance attached to straightening out the definition of territorial waters, what constitutes a wreck and so forth, will be welcomed by many people. All the work in relation to definition and identification is extremely valuable and the Department and the Minister will be thanked for it.

In relation to fines, there is a truly awful section in the Minister's speech in which she tells of a farmer telephoning the Office of Public Works to ask the level of fine so that he could make a decision on whether to bulldoze. I have said enough about that because this area will be handled by a new generation who will be more sensitive and more caring about the future. I am optimistic that this generation of children are far more caring and more interested than previous generations perhaps because they are less materialistic.

I am glad the National Monuments Advisory Council have been reconstituted and broadened. I was very worried and expressed concern on previous occasions in this House at the long delay in renominating the council because it left us vulnerable at a time when the dangers in relation to national monuments were getting worse.

On the establishment of a register, I do not think it is an unfair encumbrance on a piece of property to have a site registered. At some stage we must make a beginning. The attitude of many European countries has been to compensate owners of valuable sites so that they are not at a net loss. This is simply so as not do discourage them from reporting it or from getting a site out of the way as quickly as possible. I could be very controversial and mention the attitude of the board of directors of certain building firms with which I am familiar. When news comes from a site that something has been found, the attitude of the people who have invested money is to suggest that it be got out of the way as quickly as possible. That is not everybody's attitude, but this must be borne in mind.

People have become hysterical about the use of metal detectors. There are many sites, monuments and places that are far more important than any of us and they deserve protection. If a person using a metal detector goes on to a site and discovers the possibility of something being removed from the site, then the use of the metal detector in those circumstances should be allowed. There are many other things that people can do in relation to the uncharted environment in which they live.

I join with every other Senator in asking the Minister to take a message to the Department that the attitude of this House, and the Labour Party, for whom I am speaking, is that we want more resources made available and we want any encumbrances that exist removed. Given the urgency of what is being introduced, the embargo in relation to public service staff and public service employment in this area has been an enormous encumbrance. This is one of the rare occasions when I have seen the Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works here handling something as important as this. It is very important that we draw on the resources we have. There are very fine resources in the Royal Irish Academy, the universities, third level institutions and so forth. We need to be able to draw on those resources. It is very limiting to be in a position where there is no staff available for hire or where only somebody on a very small salary can be hired at local authority level. We need to make some kind of quantum leap into recognition of the importance of this topic.

In my view there would be nothing better than that there would be a clear response to Professor Mitchell's paper delivered in 1978. The most positive thing possible would be to study Mitchell's proposals and in principle accept certain areas, and at policy level to prioritise them and then seek funds. This type of response will give an important injection of enthusiasm to people who have served us very well, people who have worked at every level, from stonemakers and stone-breakers to professors of archaeology, the people who have worked with the State, protecting us against ourselves and from ourselves.

Mr. Fitzsimons

I am glad of this opportunity to speak on this Bill and I welcome the Bill. However, it is not nearly as comprehensive as it might be. It is easy to find fault with any legislation put before us. I welcome all the positive points of this legislation and I will refer to areas I feel should have been included.

In legislation such as this an attempt should be made at some time to consolidate the Acts which apply to any particular area. In this area there is the main Act of 1930, the amendment Act of 1934 and a further amendment Act now. It should be possible to bring in a totally new Bill to repeal all the previous Acts so that a person dealing with that Act would have all the legislation to hand. Sections of the 1930 Act and the 1954 Act are repealed in this Act. A lawyer dealing with legislation in this area in future years would have to go over the three Acts. It should be possible for the draftsman to include in a new comprehensive Act all the sections from previous Acts which remain unchanged. This should also be done in relation to other legislation. Last week we had the Control of Dogs Bill, and the same thing applied. This is something that should be considered.

I would like to refer to some of the matters raised in the Minister's very comprehensive introductory speech. The Minister said that on two previous occasions Bills of similar content were introduced in Dáil Éireann, first by the present Minister for Finance in 1978 and the second by Deputy Donnellan in 1980. Apparently, both attempts were resisted on the grounds that comprehensive legislation was in preparation. I am sure it was, but I did not get time to check it. The Minister went on to say that it would have been better to have allowed the proposals to go through, and we could have been spared some of the heartaches of the past eight years. I am sure she realises that the Government have been in power for about four-and-a-half of those eight years. If the Bills were ready and the Government felt they should have been introduced, why were they not introduced, and why has it taken so long to introduce this Bill? I am not blaming the Minister but that does beg the question that this legislation apparently was ready and it has taken a long time to come into the House.

Mr. Connor

Blame those who stymied it in 1978.

Mr. Fitzsimons

The Minister pointed out that it is not possible today, and it will not be possible for quite some time, to have definite answers which would enable comprehensive legislation to be drafted. I accept that but the Minister would agree that there are areas which should have been included. The Minister also said the Bill we are now discussing does two things: it updates the existing legislation and it breaks new ground. I agree it updates existing legislation but when she says it breaks new ground—and that phrase is probably appropriate in a Bill of this kind — I am not too sure if it is quite apt. If the Minister said the Bill goes into deep water I would agree, because it deals with wrecks. The Minister also said the level of fines and penalties is in the end a test of our seriousness. I would not agree. I do not think that could be a test of our seriousness because if it were, we would merely have to impose very heavy fines and that would solve our problems. The test would be how often the legislation was enforced. This is something for which I do not have any statistics.

On other occasions the Minister spoke very highly of farmers and their families who owned land for long periods. The country owes them a debt of gratitude for the way they have preserved our monuments. The Minister also referred to a particular farmer who asked an official at the Office of Public Works on the telephone the amount of the fine for destroying a monument because, he said, if it was the right amount he would go ahead and bulldoze it. I know the Minister was not speaking of all farmers, but what she said painted the wrong picture. She went on to say that where farms transferred to people from different areas, those people might not have sympathy with the land——

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mrs. A. Doyle)

That is the point.

Mr. Fitzsimons

I understand the Minister's thinking on that, but I believe the number of those people at whom the finger could be pointed is very small.

Mrs. A. Doyle

Unfortunately not.

Mr. Fitzsimons

Let me qualify that by saying that in my experience the number of such people is very small. I have written a history of a small parish in my locality. I come from a rural area and it is probable that the land has not been transferred outside families for many years but I do not believe a fine of £300 will deter people. When we are talking in thousands and hundreds of pounds, I do not think a fine of £300, even though it is a 30-fold increase from £10, is going to make any difference.

I would like to say a few words about the Ordnance Survey. Senator Dooge has dealt in some detail with this. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Ordnance Survey. I endorse everything that Senator Dooge said about the engineers who were part of the Ordnance Survey. It was a mammoth task performed at a difficult time. It was started in 1825 and completed in 1846, just before the famine. In addition to what Senator Dooge has said, we have volumes of letters, field books and the contributions of John O'Donovan, Eugene O'Curry and other scholars. It was unfortunate that the decision was made by Lieutenant Larcom that the anglicised version of the townland names were used instead of the Gaelic version. A decision has been made in the Ordnance Survey to produce new maps of the country to a scale of one to 5,000, giving the townland and the place names in Irish and in English. Such maps have been published for Limerick and for the south of the country and I would like to know what progress has been made as regards the map of the country because there seems to have been some kind of a go-slow. This is most important, particularly in relation to national monuments. The Ordnance Survey was performed by sappers with very little help, except from some locals. We owe a debt of gratitude to those locals who pointed out the monuments with which the sappers were not familiar.

We have a very rich heritage of which we should be proud. In a book published in 1985 by An Foras Forbartha, which should be updated and which was issued to all Members of the House, the environment and our national heritage were dealt with in great detail. There is a small section which deals with archaeological sites and monuments and it puts our heritage into perspective. I would like to quote two short paragraphs from pages 74 and 75:

The archaeological heritage comprises some 200,000 monuments, about 75 to 80 per cent of which are marked but not otherwise identified on the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps.

The original six-inch Ordnance Survey maps were sold at 2/6d. and they now cost £27.95 — a considerable increase.

Many of these monuments are of historical and cultural importance, not only nationally but also at European level. Being composed of a multitude of scattered items, many of which are not visually obvious in the landscape, it is difficult to protect the archaeological heritage from encroachment. Apart from the National Monuments Acts, 1930 and 1954, which provide protection (Preservations Orders, Listing Orders, Ownership and Guardianship) for the relatively small number of the more important sites, archaeological heritage is dependent upon the Local Government (Planning and Development) Acts, 1963 to 1983 for statutory protection. Listing of archaeological sites in the County Development Plans requires a specialist knowledge in regard to location and nature of the sites to be available to local authorities. To meet this requirement An Foras Forbartha, in a series of county reports, has supplied information on over 12,000 archaeological sites to the planning authorities.

Ireland has always been thought of as fortunate in having one of the densest concentrations of survival in archaeological field monuments of any country in Western Europe. Moreover, because of the essentially rural nature of our economy, these field monuments have not suffered wide-scale destruction from the rapid urbanisation and industrialisation that has been characteristic of other Western European nations in recent decades. It is difficult to assess accurately the damage suffered by such monument from Ireland's dispersed rural population in the centuries prior to the publication of the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps in the 1840s because of the lack of any reliable records. Although the destruction rate would probably have been higher in the more agriculturally fertile eastern half of the country, the many traditions and superstitions associated with these sites would have protected them to some extent.

Senator Mullooly has referred to that already and coming from a rural area I am in total agreement. Further the report deals with the destruction of some monuments and this is a great cause for concern. I will just refer to a few of them:

A survey of all archaeological remains, including stone castles and churches, was completed for County Dublin in 1975. This survey revealed that out of a total of 429 monuments, 60 in all, or 14 per cent, had been removed from the landscape after 1930 as a direct result of urban expansion. In many urban areas over 50 per cent of all known monuments have been destroyed in the last fifty years.

... In a study (1972) it was found that in the Dingle area of County Kerry, 44 per cent of all known ring-forts had been destroyed or severely modified since 1841, while in south County Donegal 29 per cent of ring-forts had been levelled or severely modified.

... In the south, the Department of Archaeology at University College, Cork, found that 66 per cent of the ring-forts mapped in the 1940s in the Cork harbour area had since been destroyed.... A survey of 455 ring-forts of the Barony of Middlethird in County Tipperary revealed a destruction rate of 143, or 31 per cent of the total. Destruction rates of ring-forts and other archaeological monuments revealed in recent regional surveys carried out by the Office of Public Works are:

—Donegal: 35 per cent of ring-forts and 46 per cent of standing stones destroyed;

—County Cork (East Muskerry): 36 per cent of ring-forts, 58 per cent of standing stones and 60 per cent of fulacht fiadh destroyed;

—Galway (South West): 33 per cent of cashels and ring-forts destroyed.

In a table included in the report I see that in my own county of Meath, there was a destruction rate of 25 per cent of ring-forts since the mid-19th century, which is a very considerable number. It also refers to the destruction of medieval moated sites and gives details. This report makes very sad reading.

An Cathaoirleach

From what document are you quoting?

Mr. Fitzsimons

"The State of the Environment". In County Meath, we are fortunate that we have some of the best and most renowned monuments in the country. Some of these monuments are listed in the 1981 development plan — Bru na Boinne or The Bend of the Boyne which includes Newgrange, Nowth and Dowth, all internationally known, Slieve na Calliagh, Lough Crew Passage Grave Cemetery near Oldcastle, which is renowned all over Europe, the Tara Region, Teltown/Oristown townlands and the Rathbran Church area. I would like to pay tribute to the sites and monuments record for County Meath published earlier this year. I am very grateful to the Minister for an invitation to that ceremony and for being presented with a copy of the publication. When I wrote my history in 1973 of what might not be regarded as a very significant parish, I made a very determined effort to get from the Office of Public Works a list of the monuments in that parish but I did not succeed. The Office of Public Works may have been jealous that somebody else might lay claim to work done by them but I think the decision was a wrong one. I am sure there are many other amateur local historians like myself who would like to get that type of information. If I had got that information I would have done some research among the locals in the parish. However, the Office of Public Works made their decision and I presume they still proceed the same way when such information is sought. It might be worthwhile having a look at that because people who write history books are not in it to make money; they do it for love of the place, the heritage and the people.

I am not critical of the work done by the Office of Public Works because many times I have paid tribute to their work. For a period of a few years I worked in head office, 51 St. Stephen's Green, and I know many officials there.

The document issued was worth waiting for. It is very comprehensive. The number of monuments on each sheet is given but unfortunately, I could not see the total, so I totalled them myself. That was not very easy because in some cases there was a reference to 16a, 16b and 16c. I calculated that there are 1,682 monuments listed for County Meath, a very considerable number and, as the Minister has said quite rightly, there may be many more that are unknown at present but that will be found.

On sheet number 40 there is only one monument for County Meath. I find that very hard to believe. I do not question the accuracy of it, but I think those sheets take in an area of 864 square miles — a rather large area. It is a very significant step forward to have that list for County Meath. While Senator Dooge very rightly emphasised the importance of a full archaeological survey, having these monuments listed helps the professionals, encourages the amateurs, the people who live in the area, and can do nothing but good. I am very grateful to the Minister for that copy.

Sitting suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Fitzsimons

I forgot to say at the outset that I very much welcome that this Bill was introduced in the Seanad along with the many other important Bills that have been introduced during my period here. I would also like to clarify some of the criticism we had of the Office of Public Works with regard to publication of details of monuments. I should have made it clear that I understood the position of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland in a situation where top professional archaeologists had done work and somebody else might be in a position to claim the fruit of that work. Of course, what I had in mind was that this would be acknowledged as information supplied by the Office of Public Works.

In that respect I would like if the Minister would have a look at this situation because we must remember the case I was talking about. The work was started in 1963 with regard to the compilation of the sites and monuments and 23 years later it was published. It is reasonable that information of that kind would be made available to local historians who have said they are doing their work for the love of that particular branch of learning. They are doing a very good job and they should be helped in any way possible. If, for example, a book of information of that kind might be published within a short time, the Office of Public Works could supply that information, in the interests of all concerned.

County Meath is rich in national monuments and Kells is particularly rich in ancient monuments. We have the Celtic Cross, the market cross and other crosses in the town and St. Colmcille's Oratory. The Book of Kells is in Trinity College, Dublin but many people from the town feel it should be housed in Kells. Hopefully it will return to Kells in the not too distant future. I feel it would be the proper place to display it.

I have here some comments with regard to the different areas of the Bill:

Section 1 states:

"Historic monument" includes any monument associated with the commercial, cultural, economic, industrial, military, religious or social history of the place where it is situated or of the country and also includes all monuments in existence before 1700 AD.

I feel that this is a Bill which we can deal with much better at Committee Stage. This is one of the areas where I hope the Minister will accept an amendment because taking 1700 AD as the datum line, is a mistake. The Minister referred to this in her speech and she said:

This of course, does not mean that the National Monuments Legislation is not also concerned with post-1700 structures.

There are many post 1700 structures and while, of course, it does not preclude these, nevertheless it puts them more or less outside the area where they would qualify for protection. This is unfortunate. When the Minister said that the new concept of archaeological area is introduced more or less to supplement this I must say quite candidly that I do not see the relationship. That should be brought forward, maybe a period of 100 years, something of that kind. It is something we can discuss at Committee Stage.

One of the most important sections in the Bill is section 2 which deals with metal detectors. The Minister covered this in very considerable detail in her speech. She told us:

On publication of this Bill, there was an outcry from groups representing users of metal detectors. It was alleged that under the Bill one could not use a metal detector even in one's own backyard garden without committing an offence. There was over-reaction in this. On the other hand, some archaeologists have said that we are not going far enough, that metal detectors should be banned.

When the Minister says "some archaeologists have said that we are not going far enough", I wonder does she mean that the majority of archaeologists are satisfied with the Bill and that the majority of them feel we are going far enough or is it people outside archaeology who have come to that conclusion? In one sense, with regard to the advisory council we will be relying on academics completely and I feel that guidance from academics should have been taken into consideration in framing this Bill. In the Seanad we do not have the facilities with regard to research that we would like. I wish I could get into contact with some representative of the area of archaeology who would make it clear to me one way or the other. I do not have that information and therefore, I cannot comment on it. It seems rather vague to say that some archaeologists are not satisfied and, quite clearly, the archaeologists should be completely happy with the contents of the Bill if it is to function properly.

The Minister said she was convinced that most persons would find the provisions of this Bill adequate and reasonable. Would most persons who are concerned in this area or who are involved in this area feel that it was adequate and reasonable? Then the Minister dealt with treasure hunting and asked the question, what about it? This Bill will obviously curtail the use of metal detectors. The Minister said:

What then if they use them at archaeological sites which have not as yet been afforded protection under the National Monuments Acts? If a person armed with a metal detector is found using it at a known archaeological site it will be presumed under this law that the device was being used for the purpose of searching for archaeological objects and he will be guilty of an offence.

That is at a known archaeological site. We have all agreed that there may be many unknown archaeological sites.

The Minister asked quite properly then, "Does this mean that treasure hunting with metal detectors is being made totally illegal"? The answer the Minister gives is, "No, provided those treasure hunters keep away from known archaeological sites and that they are not specifically searching for archaeological objects." What would they be searching for if they are not searching for archaeological objects? I know that question begs many clever answers. It seems that is the only thing that they would be looking for. This will put tremendous pressure on areas which are not regarded as archaeological sites.

Has the professional archaeologist any use for a metal detector? I am very naive in this area. Would it be any help to an archaeologist to use a metal detector in some instances? It seems they are precluded from using them under this particular section. Bodies representing groups of metal detector users insist that their members observe a very strict code and they say that a few people have been giving a very bad name to the whole fraternity. The Minister acknowledges this is undoubtedly true. We would all agree that most of them are sincere people and would not want to interfere in the way the Minister spoke, for example, about the site at Tara by excavating a considerable proportion of the hill.

Is there any advantage in using metal detectors? Are there any benefits? I would be inclined to the view of those people who say we should ban them altogether or certainly license them in some way that would give greater control over them. I presume that on balance the Minister came to the conclusion that this particular section deals adequately with the problem. Time will tell.

When permission is given for use of metal detectors and for excavation it can be revoked in writing at any time. The commissioners will have three months to make up their minds. An application to the commissioners under section 2 of this section, with regard to metal detectors, must be sent to them by registered post. It seems there could be an occasion when it might not be possible to use registered post due to a strike or something of that kind and that should be provided for.

With regard to the protection of sites of historic wrecks under section 3, subsection (4) states:

Subject to the provisions of this section, a person shall not, at the site of a wreck (being a wreck which is more than 100 years old) or of another object (being an archaeological object), that is lying on, in or under the seabed or on or in land covered by water...

One hundred years old is an arbitrary time. It has been referred to by those who made contributions before me. It is something that we might look at again on Committee Stage. It seems that in general it might not be easy to come to a conclusion about the age of a wreck. I know there is considerable depredation being done in this area. The Minister spoke about the survey which was completed recently on the Queen Victoria. The report is referred to in The Irish Times of Thursday 23 October. I find this paragraph most disturbing:

In their report the authors say that most of the brass fittings visible during preliminary dives to the wreck in 1985 have since been "hacksawed from their pipes, and the copper pipes themselves removed by persons unknown".

That is very sad. I am not sure if the Bill will deal with that kind of situation where some people are obviously intent on salvaging whatever they can that is valuable from these wrecks. As the Minister has told us, it is impossible to provide a 24-hour watch in all these areas.

With regard to section 4 dealing with The Historic Monuments Council, the Minister dealt with this in some considerable detail. Quite frankly, I do not understand the reason for changing The National Monuments Council to The Historical Monuments Council. That in itself can be of little help. The Minister said:

The reconstruction of The National Monuments Advisory Council on a wider academic basis and under the new title of The Historic Monuments Council is designed to be a major factor in the implementation of integrated conservation policies.

Towards the end of her speech the Minister said:

The council will have a broader academic base than the National Monuments Advisory Council which it replaces. It is hoped as a result that greater attention will be given to its recommendations.

I do not accept that. I think having a purely academic base is a narrow base. I would rather see a balanced council.

The council appointed by the Minister for Finance, Deputy John Bruton, is referred to in The Irish Times of Tuesday, 28 October 1986. I welcome the council and, in particular, some of those who have befriended me in the past; Dr. Maurice Craig, Dr. Peter Harbison and I warmly welcome the nomination of Professor George Eogan who is from Nobber in County Meath. He is a very busy man and has been very helpful to me on many occasions. Indeed any time I sought his advice his response was immediate and total.

Like Senator Brian Mullooly I feel the council is not representative enough. It would be more balanced by having members who are not involved in the academic area totally. In the past I have known of many clever people who have made silly and stupid mistakes while, on the other hand, I have known of people who have not been considered academics and who have taken a rational view. I think such people should have been included in this council. Why, for example, is somebody from An Foras Forbartha not included? After all, as I mentioned this morning, An Foras Forbartha have helped planning authorities throughout the country. They have identified 12,000 national monuments and yet they do not have a representative on this council. A representative from the Department of the Environment should be included. It is only fair that voluntary organisations be included. The council will suffer in that regard.

The Minister also said that, because of the heavy academic representation on the new council, there is less room to accommodate representatives of local archaeological societies. However, it is felt that their real place is on the historic monuments advisory committees which local authorities are authorised to establish under section 22 of the principal Act as amended by section 14 of this Bill. The Minister will agree that this is a very secondary role. It does not take into consideration the valuable work that has been done by these voluntary organisations.

Senator Mullooly suggested that a representative from the Department of Education should be on the council, a representative from the General Council of County Councils should be included and a representative from the General Council of the County Committees for Agriculture. On Committee Stage the Minister might consider if it would be in the interest of the Bill to have representatives from those areas included. The Minister has power to appoint five members to make up the 18 but this has already been done.

Some statutory provision should be made to compel the council to meet at regular intervals. This is a defect in the Bill. I realise that one of the principal functions of this council with regard to being a prescribed body is in relation to the Planning Act and for that purpose broadening its base would be helpful. It is important that it should meet and have reports at regular intervals as well.

The Minister spoke at some length about the register of historic monuments. This is already done in much the same way under section 8 of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act, 1954. Section 7 deals with the removal of national monuments to museums. Broadly speaking, I agree with this section which states that where the commissioners or a local authority are the owners of a national monument, the commissioners or a local authority, as the case may be, may, if in their opinion they can do so without injury to the monument and it is desirable for the protection or preservation of the monument, or in the interests of archaeology for any other reason to do so, move the monument and deposit it in a public museum or other place in the State.

I am particularly interested in this because in my local town of Kells we have the Market Cross and of all the Celtic crosses in Kells this is the most important. People come from all over Europe to see it. Groups gather daily to examine the cross. In my view and in the view of many other people, the Market Cross is in imminent danger from the traffic and the fumes from traffic because it is on a very exposed site, and is exposed to acid rain to some extent, frost and flaking. An effort was made at one time to arrange to have the Market Cross moved to a safer place but the people in the town felt it should not be moved. It is very difficult in that kind of situation to go against local people. They felt it should be left there. They held meetings to ensure that it would not be moved.

It is right to give the Minister the power to remove a monument where professional people come to a conclusion that it is in danger. Under the part of the section which states: "In a public museum or other place in the State..." the Minister would have power to bring a monument from one town or area to another. This is wrong and should be looked at again.

The proper place for the Book of Kells is in Kells. Any monument should be displayed in its local place and it is wrong to move it. For that reason local museums are very important. Unfortunately we do not have many of them. We have a few. One of them is in County Monaghan. This is an area where great help could be given. Section 57 of the 1955 Local Government Act gives power to provide local museums. It is a very brief section which states:

(1) The council of a county or corporation of a county borough may, with the consent of the Minister, contribute to the funds of a society, committee or other body providing or proposing to provide a museum for the reception of objects of local antiquarian interest and may assist such society, committee or other body by providing a building for their use, supplying them with furniture, office equipment and stationery or by paying the whole or part of the remuneration of any person employed in relation to the museum.

(2) The making of contributions or the granting of assistance under this section shall be a reserved function.

Unfortunately the funds are very short with local authorities. I was a member of a committee for a number of years who tried to get finance to have a county museum in Meath. We failed. There are no funds available from the EC. That is a terrible pity.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

What was the reference?

Mr. Fitzsimons

The Local Government Act, 1955. We are losing artefacts; we are losing important objects. It is a mistake that funds are not provided. Even from the point of view of terms of investment and return as far as tourism is concerned, if we had museums throughout the country they would certainly boost tourism as well as educational and cultural input. I should like the Minister to look at that to see if something can be done and if it would be possible to give some kind of grants to local authorities so that they could start even in a small way and build up in time. I see in my own area that ploughing implements, harrows, churns and artefacts of all kinds are being lost. It is a pity. They would be available at present, they would be presented free of charge to a museum. The village of Moynalty, about five miles from Kells, has a very important steam threshing annually and they have a museum of a sort. Great credit is due to them for having this type of museum but funds of some kind should be extended in order to maximise the input from that area.

Section 14 is an amendment of section 22 of the principal Act. It is amended by the substitution of "Historic" for "National" in subsection (1). This is pure semantics. I cannot see the advantage in simply changing a name from "national" to "historic". I happen to be a member of the County Meath National Monuments Advisory Committee. I note that I am one of 15 members, although, from my reading of the Act, it seems to me that ten is the maximum membership for the advisory committees. However, there must be some regulation I have overlooked. It was originally between three and five in the 1930 Act. Section 12 of the 1954 Amendment Act varied that from three to ten. Again, I would ask the question here: why not have some statutory regulation with regard to meetings of the advisory committees? It is important because in my own county, to my knowledge, they have not met since the last election. It is not a very long time and I am sure there are many more important matters to be considered but if there was a statutory obligation to have meetings it would engender more enthusiasm. I suggest that that should be included.

Section 16 amends sections of the principal act. The fines are increased twenty-fold and thirtyfold and so on. The question I have asked already is how often have these been enforced? How many prosecutions have we had? This is more of a gauge of the success of the Act than the actual amount of fines. If it was as simple as that it would be very easy to have a prohibitive fine and leave it at that. But as we know from other legislation, in particular the Anti-Litter Act, increasing the fines does nothing. People who do not have the capacity and the intention to be concerned about litter are not going to worry about a fine, and most of these people will not be detected anyway.

Section 18 deals with the registration of certain matters as burdens affecting registered land. The Minister has gone into this in detail and that is right and proper. In many cases farmers might consider it undesirable to have national monuments on their land because it makes such a location a public place. It is right that that should be registered in the register of deeds.

Section 20 deals with fees. I wonder could the fees be prohibitive in themselves. No figure is specified, so obviously this can be varied. I wonder could this be a deterrent in itself.

There are other sections in the Bill which we can deal with in greater detail on Committee Stage. I want to finish with a few remarks on other aspects. With regard to rewards and ownership I would like to see this covered in some detail in the Bill. There is no reference to it. The Minister did make a passing comment when she said:

While it is not the intention of the Bill, however, to outlaw all use of metal detectors as a hobby, it is well to remember that treasure hunting almost always involves breaches of the common law. There is trespass on private property, interference with such property and possibly, theft of property.

I would like to see that developed somewhat more to specify some rewards with regard to people who discover objects of that kind and who present them to the National Museum. We know in the not too distant past there were problems in this area. I think they will recur. I would like to see some attempt made to encourage people to present those objects to the National Museum, that they would be properly rewarded and that some consideration would be given as to the ownership of these objects — whether they are owned by the State or owned by the people on whose land the objects are found.

One particular area which I think is very much neglected at present and for some considerable time past is the graveyard attached to most parishes. Most of these would be old graveyards — nowadays they are nearly all referred to as cemeteries but in the old days they were graveyards or churchyards. I am very honoured to be honorary secretary of the all-party parliamentary heritage group, of which Deputy Oliver J. Flanagan is the chairman. I was very pleased to see that Deputy Flanagan raised this matter at the parliamentary assembly in July, 1983, with regard to memorials. I hope that something will be done about that because I see the situation in my own rural area where old graveyards, which are more or less closed, are abandoned. I know that in the old days yew trees, which are poisonous to cattle, were planted in those graveyards. I gather the idea was to ensure that farmers would put a proper fence around the cemetery to prevent the trespass of cattle. I must say, whether it is normal or otherwise, one of my pastimes when I visit a strange place, is to visit the graveyard and read the inscriptions on the tombstones. I realise that unfortunately only the wealthy and those with some means could provide headstones and that by and large many of those who made the biggest contribution to the community would not have a headstone. Nevertheless, all these headstones have a resumé of the history of families. Local authorities do not have enough money to attend to them properly. Some consideration should be given to this area.

Workhouses deserve some kind of consideration. In the terms of the Bill 1,700 workhouses could not be considered monuments because they were erected just before what is called the great famine. I pass a workhouse outside the village of Dunshaughlin daily which externally appears in good condition. I think an attempt should be made — perhaps in the one in Dunshaughlin — to restore one of these workhouses to its original state. While having a cultural and educational objective in mind it would also encourage tourists. Most of these workhouses have been either renovated or improved to make hospitals or have been demolished entirely. There was a workhouse in fairly good condition in Kells and it was demolished about 30 years ago. Before they are all gone an attempt should be made to restore one of them. The one in Dunshaughlin seems to be very suitable.

I am saddened to see all the small Protestant churches throughout rural areas being demolished. They are a big cultural loss and also a religious one. My view about religion is that it is simply a way to God and we all have different ways to go. I do know that these small Protestant churches in my own time had congregations and they went to their services on Sundays and sang the hymns and they had a particular place in the community. Even the buildings in themselves are well worth while preserving. I know that a very well preserved church in Nobber was offered to the county library to be used as a library and it was found unsuitable and nothing has been done about it since. That is a pity. At least some of these churches should be kept in the state in which they were used.

We also have holy wells. There is a great wealth of these in the country and most of these would not be marked on the Ordnance Survey maps. I think they should because they have a long pre-Christian history. They were adapted to Christian use. Again local historians could help very much in this area.

We have the sites of hedge and bush schools, sites where Mass was celebrated in the penal days, Mass rocks and the Mass pass, of course, has a special place. These should all be marked on the map. The old rural stiles across fences should be marked because they have a special place in local folklore. I recall Lady Dufferin's poem which I do not hear very much now: "I am sitting on the stile, Mary". The stile had a special place as everybody brought up in a rural area would know, and these should be marked because many of them have disappeared with the bulldozer and as a result of the widening and improvement of roads.

Mills were also very numerous in the countryside. Most of the mills have gone. We are fortunate that in County Meath near Kells the very beautiful mill at Martary has been retained through the good offices of the Board of Works and they have done a magnificent job there. It is a pity that more of them are not retained.

The old schools are also being demolished. A few of them should be retained. The old school which I attended in Carlanstown is still there and indeed many of the old roll books are there. It is a pity that there is no provision to have those taken and kept in situations where the buildings have fallen into decay. The proper way to do it would be to improve the old buildings.

I have made a special plea for thatched houses in the past and I am very pleased to note in a report in The Irish Times of 27 and 28 October that the Minister for Finance has arranged to have a special pilot study carried out on the state of local vernacular architecture. I welcome that very sincerely. In County Meath we have only about 60 thatched houses that are inhabited. I have made a plea before for those thatched houses. They are special; the people who live in them are special. They should be listed and a special grant should be provided to enable people to have them rethatched and maintained because that is an expensive process. But the important thing to remember is that they cannot be replaced. They belong to a certain time. They were the product of constraints with regard to materials and craftsmanship. Unfortunately the thatched house can be removed overnight with a bulldozer. This is happening all the time. Something special should be done for thatched houses. I made that plea before and this is an appropriate time to repeat it.

Another area that is important and which should be conserved is the bog. In my youth the bogs in County Meath were beautiful and clean but now they are covered with rubbish. People bring out old cars and dump them in the bogs. In my youth when one was working on the bog and leaving at night if one had a sandwich in a bag and put it under a footing, as it was called, it would be safe in the morning provided it was safeguarded from the scald crows but now it is covered with vermin, rats and mice. This is a sad situation for anybody who cherishes the countryside. I am not sure that it is reversible. I do not think it will be possible to clean up our bogs. In one of the most beautiful bogs in my area the county council dump was established and changed the whole aspect of it. I have heard people taking pride in the appropriate place that it was for a dump. I think that is criminal. I say this in passing but it is an area that should be looked at.

This is an area where there is no conflict on party lines. We all welcome the Bill very sincerely. As I have explained in my contribution, it could be more comprehensive. A case could be made to repeal existing legislation regarding ancient monuments and to start off with a clean sheet and incorporate in the new Bill the sections that need to be retained. This should be done in relation to all types of legislation so that lawyers would not have to go back over different Acts covering different periods of time. Legislation should be up-dated in this way. Having said that, I welcome the Bill and I look forward to Committee Stage when I hope the Minister will agree to some of the amendments which we on this side of the House will be putting down.

Mr. Connor

It is a privilege to speak on this legislation. In the history of the State we have not had much legislation dealing with our heritage or our past. I welcome this Bill and I see it as a sincere attempt to tackle the problem that has become very serious. Nevertheless, it may have its weaknesses. The intent of the Bill and the intent underlying it, in the sense that it extends legal protection to monuments and so on that might be endangered, is very good, but extending legal protection needs the wherewithal by which the actual protection covers or the actual writ moves. One of the weaknesses in the Bill is that, while the legal aspect is extended, there will be no compensating increase in the staff who carry out this work. Another weakness is that, while we extend the legal protection from man-made intervention, for example vandalism and so on, we are not extending the damage that can be done by nature itself.

I accept the overall concept of the Bill which deals with an integrated conservation programme. That new and imaginative departure is very welcome. In the past we have seen how the various authorities who have responsibility for our national monuments got at cross purposes with one another — the Office of Public Works and the local authorities. Very often there were cross purposes between those people and the Department of Agriculture who play a central role in the area of national monuments because they are a grant-giving body for field improvement and so on. Many very important field monuments have been destroyed as a result of agricultural improvement.

In section 18 we are compiling for the first time a register of archaeological sites in the sense that it will become obligatory on any property owner where there is an archaeological site to register it as part of the deed of that property and it will form an encumbrance on that property for somebody who might want to develop it, destroy it or whatever. However, this can only be done with registered land. There is no mention in the Bill of what we may be able to do with unregistered lands and throughout the countryside there still remain many great tracts of land — estates, farms and so on — that are unregistered. I would like the Minister to take note of that. I would also like to be assured that this legislation will not be in conflict with existing land legislation.

I welcome the fact that all pre-1700 buildings are to come under some form of protection under the new category of historic monuments as distinct from national monuments. This will extend legal protection to many monuments which heretofore had no real legal protection. Nevertheless. I should like to see the protection extended to monuments of the 19th and 20th centuries. The Minister stated that there is nothing in the Bill which precludes the OPW from taking into their care any building or site of a later period but, nevertheless, I would like to see this written into the legislation because that would guarantee that the protection would be extended.

I congratulate the OPW on the archaeological inventory and I ask that this be greatly speeded up because, at its present pace, it will be many years before there will be a full inventory for each county, as the system seems to be county by county. The protection of this Act should be extended to all sites of historical or archaeological value, whether they be pre-1700, after 1700 or of the the 20th century.

I also welcome the provision in section 2 which bans or restricts or outlaws the use of metal detectors at archaeological sites. There is no doubt that over the past two decades untold damage has been done to our archaeological sites by people detecting, lifting, and very often selling, artefacts. We have lost coins which have been detected in this way and then sold, and coins are usually an important item in the actual dating of a site. We have also lost body ornaments such as bracelets, pendents and rings very often made of precious metals and stones. Those have been detected by metal detectors and sold.

We have lost priceless artefacts in this way, priceless in terms of what they could tell about our history and heritage and they have been lost or sold because of this activity which has been going on since the invention of fairly sophisticated and quite cheap metal detectors about 20 years ago. Since then they have become even more sophisticated. However, I am somewhat doubtful about that section because it speaks more about the devices than about the people who are actually using them. The Bill deals with these devices but there is nothing in it which increases the inspectorate or whatever else is needed to improve the detection of potential vandalism.

Section 4 deals with a new historic monument council and I welcome this new and imaginative idea. I am slightly worried about one line in the Minister's speech which states that it is hoped as a result that greater attention will be given to its recommendations. Does the Minister mean as a result of its having a greater academic content? I hope there will be no "hope" involved in this area and that when the council make a recommendation or give advice we will not be "hoping" they will be heeded. I hope that if it makes a recommendation it will have real power to enforce it or that whatever is asked to be done will be done. One also has to welcome the fact that this council will have prescribed authority on the planning regulations which will make it obligatory for planning applications for development in areas of archaeological sensitivity or archaeological value to be referred to the new Historical Monuments Council for their observations.

Like other Senators I too was amused by the quote about the farmer who rang up the Office of Public Works asking what was the fine for destroying a monument and who said: "If it is not too much I will go ahead and destroy it, it will be well worth it". On that theme, one cannot say much for a local authority like Sligo County Council who a couple of years ago were going to site a public dump near Carrowmore, which is one of the oldest pre-Christian sites in the country.

With the permission of the Leas-Chathaoirleach, I will make some comments on the make-up of the proposed new council. I would like to include for the record the actual members and the background they are to come from. First, we have a representative of the Taoiseach, nominated by the Taoiseach; a representative of the Minister for Communications, nominated by the Minister for Communications; a representative of the Commissioners, nominated by the Commissioners of Public Works. We shall have a representative from each of the following bodies, nominated by the body of which he is a representative, namely, Trinity College, Dublin; University College, Dublin; University College, Cork; University College, Galway; Queens University in Belfast; Bord Fáilte Éireann; The Royal Irish Academy; The Royal Society of Antiquaries in Ireland; The Royal Society of Architects of Ireland and the Maritime Institute of Ireland or any other persons or such other persons, not exceeding five in number as the Minister may determine from time to time. It is a great pity that a body like An Taisce are not included as having representatives on this body. An Taisce are the national trust of Ireland and have done immeasurable work in preserving the national heritage. I find it odd that a body like the Historic Irish Tourist Houses Association does not have a seat on this council. They have done immeasurable work in preserving the relatively few historic houses that we have in this country; many of them are veritable museums in their own right. Without State assistance these places have often been open to the public. People from An Taisce and the Historic Irish Tourist Houses Association should have seats on this council. It is also odd that the National Museum of Ireland does not have a seat on this council. We may be moving some amendments on Committee Stage and perhaps the Minister would take note of these remarks. We have already stated that the Minister has the power to nominate five other members. I would counsel him or her to take great care when appointing those people because for too long in this country we have had——

Mrs. A. Doyle

Him.

Mr. Connor

No doubt the Minister of State will have some influence. We do not want to make it another quango of all kinds of unsuitable people. We must be very sensitive about the type of people we put on these State boards. I ask the Minister to look closely at bodies like the Irish Museums Association; the Irish Museums Trust; The National Trust Archive; the Heritage Trust and the Irish Georgian Society and indeed other lesser known local voluntary organisations who work in these areas and at the good voluntary work done by these people. From those bodies he might draw the five people that will be added in addition to the ten or 12 people that are already on the board. I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to take that advice from me but if not I would ask that a far greater level of co-operation, consultation and recognition be given to the enormous good work done by these bodies. I ask that that recognition be given by the OPW and by the Department of Finance.

I would like to digress a little to talk about some of the things that are not in the Bill and that I would like to see in the Bill. It is a pity that we have not in the Bill provisions to strengthen the law on the sale and export of artefacts of historical and archaeological or cultural value and it would be appropriate to have a fund to actually purchase such articles that would be in danger of leaving the country. I would like to have seen more done in the Bill to educate the public regarding the problem of preserving and the actual value of the monuments. I would like to have seen a proposal on the establishment of regional museums so that many of the artefacts that are now dumped in the basement of the National Museum, could be put on display in these museums where they would have some relevance and where they would be appreciated. I would like to have seen in this Bill a clear statement of policy on plans for the restoration of old castles and historical buildings. We do not have that. I would like to see a plan for a new presentation and interpretation of the sites and monuments which our visitors and tourists and our own population come to see. There is a tremendous dearth of information about every national monument that is not under the direct care of the OPW. The OPW are constantly working in places like Clonmacnoise. There is no doubt that as a result a large proportion of our own population remain uninformed and unappreciative of our built heritage because of the lack of development at so many sites and an unimaginative way of presenting it. I have in mind an underdeveloped archaeological site which would have a large graphic ground plan of the monument or the site, that we would have a suggested exploration trail, information tracks along the way and also interesting written information available to any visitor.

We give every credit to the Office of Public Works for what has been done in many of the very famous sites like Clonmacnoise, Grange and Cashel. The graphic ground plans are well in evidence in those places. The visitor is certainly well serviced; well informed and everything is well interpreted for the visitor. If you go to the ancient royal site of Connacht, Rathcroghan in County Roscommon, this is one of the most hallowed sites in terms of our history in the whole country and yet what do we find there? You find a large field monument and earth works of various ages. There is nothing there of interpretative value to the visitor. There is nothing to inform visitors that much of what they are looking at is well over 2000 years old. This is where the first form of Government was established over 2000 years ago. It is here also that Queen Maeve held court. She is a familiar figure to us when we look at our pound notes. It is here also that King Daithí, who was the last pre-Christian king of the country is buried. Rathcroghan has also many other great epics to its name. One can travel to the village of Ballintubber in County Roscommon to find the oldest Gaelic stone castle on this island. It is a truly magnificent edifice. It has over 1,000 feet of surrounding or curtain wall and four great towers at each side and yet it is at an advanced state of demolition because of neglect. It is a national monument but every day a little more of it falls down. The only way one can remedy that situation is by major reconstruction and repair work, but we do not find anything in the Bill which offers any hope to a monument so threatened. We can take another historical site found in County Roscommon and that was modern by comparison with those I have already been talking about. That is the little Church of Ireland church at Frenchpark. The little Church of Ireland church is an 18th century structure and that is interesting in itself. Of far greater interest is that it is the last resting place of Douglas Hyde. Very few people know by the look of it because the church itself is gradually yielding to the elements, being demolished bit by bit by nature itself. Very few people visiting the place know that Dr. Hyde is buried there and that in a spot very close to it he spent most of his creative years. This Bill does extend protection to it. It will not be seen as a historic monument. It guarantees no State assistance that is more than well deserved in this particular case to lift this spot to a level of respectability and indeed a level of dignity that is well deserved of somebody who was a giant of the literary renaissance which in turn became the national renaissance, which in turn became a nation itself.

Much of what I have just said would mean the spending of public money. I know very well the constraints on this brave Government in trying to maintain and manage the public finances. We should not lose sight of the fact that there is a commercial side to putting our history on display. Recent surveys by Bord Fáilte show that of all overseas visitors who came to this country as tourists in 1985, 57 per cent visited historical and archaeological sites. The statistic also shows that 78 per cent of north American tourists visited archaeological and historical sites and they are the A group in our tourists. Almost 70 per cent of tourists coming from Europe visited our historical sites. There is no doubt that sightseeing to archaeological places or places associated with history is by far the most popular single activity engaged in by visitors to this country. No other activity whatever it is approaches it in terms of popularity.

For this reason I advocate greater spending to improve the presentation and the interpretation of these places. We are talking about something that is aesthetic and maybe we should avoid the commercial side. I have no doubt that any money spent on it would have a return in terms of improved tourism revenue. One salutes the commissioners for what they have done with their limited resources in terms of restoration, presentation and development as such splendid sites as Boyle Abbey, Kilkenny Castle, Glendalough and the other famous places. Let us not allow the passage of this Bill through the House without mentioning those people who voluntarily restored magnificent edifices like Holy Cross Abbey in County Tipperary and Ballintubber Abbey in County Mayo. These restorations were by and large done outside the official channels.

Neglect like what we see around the great Norman castle in Roscommon town which was built in 1269 by Robert De Ufford who was an English justiciary or the like neglect that attends on the 1275 Dominican Abbey in that town which is architecturally outstanding in a national sense is to say the least regrettable. There is also the tomb of the King of Connacht which is quite unique. It is unique because of the motif decorating the side of the sarcophagus. This is a motif depicting his protectors as galloglasses. It is quite amazing that monuments which depict a golden age in our past are so neglected now as to reflect a benighted attitude of this time and this generation.

While I might have sounded critical — I have no intention to and I understand the constraints we operate under — what I have said was more in terms of advice and what I would like to see in the legislation. The legislation itself is quite far reaching. It might not have the financing or the provisions from personnel to actually carry it through to all the conclusions we would like to see it having but nevertheless it is imaginative and it is fairly unique in the sense that we have spent very little time looking at this important part of our life. It can be relative and effective for decades to come. People have criticised the National Monuments Act, 1930, and the National Monuments (Amendment) Act, 1954, but there is no doubt that that was good legislation. They laid down their rules quite clearly for the protection of our monuments. It was bad observation by some people and sometimes inadequate enforcement that led the law to the level of becoming an ass at times. The amendments before us here today can suffer a similar fate if we are not careful. No one can doubt the commitment of the Minister of State, who in her short time in office has brought this matter forward. Somebody was saying this morning that it has taken a long time to bring the legislation before either House of the Oireachtas but we understand that there were major legal problems which had to be straightened out with the Attorney General's office and I know the Minister made it one of her priorities in coming to office. Again we express our appreciation for her imagination and her enthusiasm in this area.

There may come a time when the Minister in office may not have the same level of commitment and enthusiasm as the present Minister. That is why I would like to see this Bill being watertight. That is why I like the idea of the council to advise the commissioners. It is very important that we get the balance and the personnel of the council right. They are the people who will see, irrespective of the political personnel in the Office of Public Works, that the letter and the spirit of the law as laid down is carried out even if the political direction is not very good. If the level of enthusiasm and commitment is there by the council, indeed by the commissioners, it will be seen through.

May I conclude by expressing some of these thoughts to the Minister, to people who come after the Minister, to the commissioners and above all to the council, that we should in future use all the legislation we have in protecting our heritage to achieve some of the following aims. Let us work towards a national plan for the restoration and protection of all old castles, all our ancient monasteries and churches and other historic buildings or structures, let them be ancient, let them be just old or let them be relatively young. Do not let us date too much any part of our heritage that the older it is the better. That is not necessarily true.

Could we have a policy for the lesser ruins we have in every corner of the country? In all remote parts of this island there are minor monastic structures, ruins of old churches, and so on often located in very old cemeteries. These structures live truly in limbo land. The Office of Public Works and the local authority will say that they have no responsibility. Meanwhile every day, every year, by the loss of these things as they crumble we are losing a little more of our history and a little more of our heritage. I would like to see a doubling of the regional monument inspectors appointed by the OPW. We should work towards every local authority having at least a consultant archaeologist working in their area.

We must look at the idea of co-operation with local landowners on whose lands or adjacent to whose lands there are field monuments. I ask for the co-operation of these people in deterring ransacking and robbery of such places. Landowners on whose property these monuments are situated are in a unique position to observe destruction or damage being done to them because of the fact that they are almost always present. We have to think in terms of these people being regarded as guardians of these sites. I say this because we have a great problem with enforcement. Any monument in a remote place is 50 or 60 miles away from a local OPW inspector and many miles away from any local Garda station. We should have somebody local acting as a guardian empowered to report culprits who are seen to be damaging, ransacking or metal detecting and so on. This law will never be fully effective until we have some policing of that kind.

I suggest also that we place signs on such monuments stating that local members of the civilian population are entitled to stop people and report any suspicious activity. This could be a deterrent to some of the plunder that has gone on heretofore. This type of protection should be used only in remote rural places away from the law enforcement authorities. My final advice to the Minister, the commissioners and the Historic Monuments Council following on the enactment of this Bill is that there should be a more enlightened official attitude towards archaeologists, historians, conservationists, preservationists and other culturally minded people who work very often through local voluntary effort in this area. The State and its agencies should ensure that the highest possible level of co-operation is carried on with them and that the official penurious attitude towards funding them should be reexamined. These people work to reveal our heritage, to interpret it and to preserve it for us. We owe it to this generation and to those who will follow us and indeed, to those who have left us our rich heritage not to treat these people and their good work with paucity.

Mr. W. Ryan

I too welcome this Bill. In the Minister's opening remarks she mentioned that it is now 50 years since the enactment of the principal Act and 30 years since the amendment of that Act. Such Acts should be reviewed more often. Even if we were not to change anything in the Acts the Houses of the Oireachtas should have a look at them every five years. Now that it is proposed to start to form a new advisory council it might be well if a report from that council was laid before this House and the other House at least every year so that we would be able to review it from time to time.

I notice also that all pre-1700 structures rank as historic monuments. That is a very good thing but perhaps it has come a bit too late. I know of two Norman castles in my own county, built in the early 12th century, which are still standing in perfect order. I often wondered how those castles could stand all that time without suffering any damage from weather, or wars, or anything else. To my surprise some time ago I noticed an application for a planning permission in one of our newspapers to convert one of them into a dwellinghouse. Immediately I drew the attention of our county council officials to this. I thought it was under the care of the Office of Public Works and I was told it was not.

I cannot understand why that happened. All our local county council could do was to grant planning permission for the conversion provided there was no interference whatsoever with the outside of the castle. What happens inside is a different matter. In this castle there is a spiral staircase and I hope it has not been changed. The same thing happened to a similar castle between Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir near Kilsheelan where a farmer requested planning permission to build a dwelling house some years ago. Our county planning officer refused because the castle was on a main road and he did not encourage building houses on that main road. The farmer then said he would apply for planning permission to convert the old castle into a house. He did, and he is living in it now. I am firmly convinced that those two castles should have been under the care of the Office of Public Works for years and I was surprised they were not. I hope there are not too many other cases of that kind around.

The Bill also provides that the Office of Public Works may take in charge post-1700 buildings. I know they have taken certain places in charge, perhaps not because they felt they should take them over. In many cases those places were handed over by the owners to the Government who in turn passed them to the Office of Public Works. That is how they came to be in the charge of the Office of Public Works.

Just saying that the Office of Public Works may take them over is not enough because there are many pre-1700 buildings and ruins which should be taken over. In my own parish, Thomastown Castle was built by the Matthew family in the very early years of the 18th Century, I think in 1710. I have read a bit about it, and that castle was described as the finest in the land. When that statement was made 100 years or more ago it was some statement, because we had quite a lot of those mansions at the time. What happened to that castle? The estate was taken over by the Land Commission while the house was in good repair, but not a thing was done to that house. It was just let fall down. The walls of that building are still there.

There is a lot of history attached to that place. Through the county council, I have tried to get the Office of Public Works to take it in charge but they do not want to do so. If that place deteriorates any further — there is no roof on it; only the walls and turrets are still there — it will be a crying shame. As its history has been written about in recent times, tourists arrive every other day to see Thomastown Castle but they have a hard time trying to get in there because there is no proper entrance to it. With that castle went the village of Thomastown which was supposed to be the most beautiful village in Ireland at one time. It was only after years of talking with our county council that I finally persuaded them to restore the village to its former glory by building houses there exactly the same as the houses in the past.

I am pleased to see in the Bill that when there is a sale of land or a farm it will have to be a condition of the sale that the purchaser is made aware of anything of historical interest on the farm so that he will not start a row afterwards. This happened in quite a few places, especially with foreigners who bought big estates in Ireland, and particularly in my county. When they discovered there was something like a Mass path or a right-of-way into an old cemetery they tried to close it up but they did not get away with it. Our county council sorted that out with them. Mass paths were very common in Ireland 100 or 150 years ago, but they no longer exist. Old people will tell you there were Mass paths here or there. If those paths are on any maps — and I suppose they are not — they should be noted and kept for future generations.

Much has been said about metal detectors. I agree with most people that they should not be used as they have been used but I have to say a little in their favour. Were it not for a metal detector the Derrynaflan Chalice would never have been discovered. It was lying under the ground under about a foot and a half of clay for the best part of 1,000 years and it could have been there for another 1,000 years were it not for Michael Webb who discovered it. I am sorry to see there has been such a lot of talk — and even law cases — about it since then. In cases like that there should be a law that the finder of anything valuable should be given a percentage. It should be cut and dried like that. The matter should not have to go to the High Court to decide what its value is, who should get most of it and so on. The Department should have a look at that.

I am not completely in favour of banning metal detectors altogether. I feel that there are people who are experts at their job, who are doing a good job and we should leave them to do it. Were it not for Mr. Webb we might not have the Derrynaflan Chalice. We have all heard all kinds of stories about gold being hidden somewhere. If the Office of Public Works had an expert — they would want more than one, of course — who would search all those places with a metal detector and make sure there were no treasures there, that would end speculation And if there should be treasure there, let them find it themselves. That would end the ideas that people have about there being a lot of hidden treasure.

Finally, I want to pay a tribute to the Office of Public Works. It is not too often tributes are paid to them. They are accused by everyone of being very slow to do anything. God's mills grind slowly but they grind exceedingly well. That is the way I look at it in the case of the Office of Public Works. We have had to leave the Seanad Chamber to come in here while they are doing work. Many people are impatient about that. I am talking about monuments and I regard this place as a monument. I am quite satisfied they will do the job here and do it well. It is only right that this place should be kept properly because it is a monument. I understand that if they had not started the work at this time, the place could fall down in a few years time. That would be too bad.

I want especially to congratulate them on the work, in Holycross, in my own county. They cannot take all the credit for the work there because the idea of restoring it came from our last bishop, Dr. Morris. Quite a lot of the money that has gone into it has come from people in the parish, in County Tipperary and all over Ireland. Nevertheless, without the expertise of the Office of Public Works I doubt if our archdiocese could have restored Holycross as it is today. People go there from all over Ireland to see it and are amazed. The restoration still goes on and it will go on for another ten or 20 years before it will be fully restored to its former glory.

The Rock of Cashel is another example in County Tipperary. There is an abbey quite close to my home that is also in the charge of the Office of Public Works. It is known as a castle abbey. I do not expect it ever to be fully restored although if it were, Holycross would be a small thing compared to it. I would like to see the Office of Public Works spending more money there. Some years ago — I think it was when former Deputy Jim Gibbons was in charge — he told me at that time that they were to spend about £15,000 on it then. Of course the money ran out again and nothing happened there. The OPW do very little work there and they spend very little money there. This is something I hope will be rectified in the future.

I believe that the office of Public Works are an office or department entitled to have a full Minister and this is no disrespect to the lady in the office now. She could well be the Minister but in my time I venture to say that more Parliamentary Secretaries and Ministers of State have come and gone in that Department than any other. I think they have more work to do than anybody else. They do not look after monuments alone; they look after every public building in the country and every school. It is a pity that the person in charge of that Department is only a junior Minister. Usually when there is a promotion to a senior ministry it is the Minister in that position that gets a senior appointment and then someone else is put in the OPW. Any Minister who has ever come into it was only finding his or her feet in the job when he or she was transferred to another ministry. I hope that when another election is over and another Government are in power that that will be one of the things they will take into account — a full Minister to look after public works.

Senator Fitzsimons referred to cemeteries and I fully agree with him in that regard. We have many old cemeteries in the country which are neglected. I have written a book on one of those cemeteries in my own parish where stones date back 400 years. Those cemeteries are being neglected. I do not know whether it should be the Office of Public Works or the county councils' responsibility to look after them. I think it should be the county council but local authorities are inclined to abandon those cemeteries. That is a very sad thing. Then fences are knocked down, cattle come in and in due course headstones are damaged. Maybe in 50 years time someone will say that there once was a cemetery there. That is something that should not happen.

I am very pleased that local authorities, and especially my own Tipperary County Council, have taken an interest in cemeteries. Wherever a parish community exist that community receives a grant for looking after the cemetery during the year. That has done a lot to improve our cemeteries. It is very easy to keep the new ones. The grass can be cut by a lawnmower but old cemeteries are in a different class and it takes a bit of hard work to maintain them. All those old cemeteries in south Tipperary have been well looked after, thanks to Tipperary County Council. It is a pity that other county councils throughout the country do not do the same. I congratulate the Minister in introducing this Bill. I am sure the Bill will go a long way to preserve our ancient monuments since before 1700 and after.

Mr. Browne

Cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille seo, mar tá sé an-tábhachtach, sílim, go dtaispeáinfimíd ár ndáríre faoi na h-iarsmaí atá ar fud na tíre seo. Tá iachall orainn na hiarsmaí seo a chosaint dosna glúna atá ag teacht in ár ndiaidh ionas nuair a bheimidne ar shlí na fírinne agus iad san ag stracadh leis an saol go mbeidh na hiarsmaí seo ann dóibh. Déarfainn go bhfuil sé fior-thábhachtach freisin nach n-éireóidh le héinne saibhreas a bhaint amach toisc go dtagann sé ar na hiarsmaí seo, is cuma cé ór nó airgead nó foirgneamh bh'féidir atá ann. Níl cead acu saibhreas a bhaint amach toisc go bhfuil seoda luachmhara náisiúnta faighte acu — go neamh-dleathach go minic.

In welcoming this Bill I would like to take up one or two comments made by Senator Ryan in his contribution. He complimented the Board of Works and in the presence of the Minister I would also like to say that while her Department have often been slated for long delays, in a few days under the expert guidance of the Cathaoirleach and the Clerk of the Seanad, who brought it to their notice, they put a lovely handle on the Chamber door which has made it safer for all of us to go in and out here. This is the third time I said this, and it happened within a few days of being pointed out. The Board of Works should get a much higher rating that they get, for efficiency. The Minister may congratulate them for me.

Senator Ryan mentioned that after the next election there may be a new Minister. I am not sure if he feels the present Minister will be elevated by a new Government that will come in under the present Taoiseach, Dr. FitzGerald or whether he means something else. I think the Minister may be promoted to higher things after the next election and so should not worry about Senator Ryan's comments.

Someone jokingly said that history is a thing of the past. Archaeology is surely a thing of the past. The Leas-Chathaoirleach should be worried that Roscommon seems very much out of line because Senator Connor really showed the richness of the past in Roscommon. Things of the past have a future so we will not write off Roscommon yet. This richness that has been passed down to us gives us a guideline on what took place so many years ago, the kind of life people led, the kind of art they had as one can see when one looks at the marvellous work that is done in gold and silver. All these things should be preserved. It should be seen that we are taking it seriously at this stage so as to ensure that we prevent the abuse of our heritage, the abuse of our riches and also ensure that individuals cannot for their own gain destroy what is a very valuable part of our life.

At this hour of the evening it is probably impossible to say something that has not been said already but the idea of punishments and fines is always a problem. The question of reward and punishment has always to be balanced. While I agree that fines should be severe — I am not so sure if fines are severe enough for people who blatantly go out of their way to break the rules — I have a lot of sympathy for an innocent person who on the spur of the moment could do some damage to a very important find. People who would go out for their own sake and for the sake of reward, perhaps, should be punished and punished severely for damaging what does not belong to them.

As mentioned by a previous speaker there should be a reward for handing up important finds or for holding up one's own business and one's own work when one accidentally comes across something of value, whether it is in the case of a farmer ploughing a field or somebody knocking a fence or some such thing. Often great inconvenience is caused to such people. We should have a definite system of reward so that these people will not feel foolish for delaying their work. We do not put enough emphasis through our educational system on what this really means from the point of view of the nation.

Archaeology always sounds a very dry subject. I spent only a year studying it officially and because there was an examination at the end of the year I did not altogether appreciate what was going on as much as I should. I had a certain interest in it because Carlow has also to be mentioned for its historical finds and everybody here knows that we have the largest dolmen in Europe with a capstone that is estimated to be 100 tonnes. It is quite a tourist attraction. I often wonder if as many local people know about the dolmen as do people from Denmark, Sweden and Germany. As I pass the dolmen each evening I am amazed at the number of buses that are there and the number of people inquiring where the dolmen is, often in very broken English. You could call it a big lump of a stone. It is a very important burial chamber in the middle of a very big field and in fairness to people who have land — and I am glad that is mentioned in the Bill — it is often a great inconvenience to such people to have the monument on their property. The farmer who owns the field in which the dolmen is invariably has corn depending on his rota, and in the middle of a 20 acre field there is the dolmen. While he has been most obliging and he has provided paths along by the wall and so on, it is amazing when new people go in there, not the genuine archaeologist or the person who is genuinely interested in the dolmen, but especially young people, they can, it seems, get as much fun in running through the corn and knocking it down as they do in looking at the dolmen.

Many of these things have caused great inconvenience for farmers who own the land on which these dolmens stand. I am glad that the Board of Works have made a new entrance to the dolmen in Carlow. It gives much easier access to it and the farmer certainly will have much more convenience even though in trying to cut a pathway from the road into the dolmen it can make it very awkward for machinery; instead of being able to go around the field in circles, they have to work and turn at angles. If farmers who have monuments on their land are slightly agitated over the way people are treating them we should understand very clearly that they have a very genuine case. We should not insist that because monuments have a national importance therefore we are going to ride roughshod over everybody else's rights. I know that is not the official thinking but it can often happen at ground level.

If we had a system in education which placed much more emphasis on what people should look out for, what people can see, we would have many more finds. At one stage one of my pupils brought in three or four stones, some with very peculiar shapes. As it happened, those with the most peculiar shapes were of no value whatsoever but the one that did not attract his attention happened to be a stone age axe head which I took up to the Museum here. They were delighted to get it; they wrote a letter acknowledging it and they put a reference to it in their annual report. I am quite sure that the Stone Age axe head is buried in the depth of the Museum because they do not have room to put it on display.

I have made this plea here before and I make it again. In Carlow we have a particularly good museum — I am not being parochial in saying that. It is well looked after by members of the Old Carlow Society. That Stone Age axe head, which was found roughly three miles from Carlow town, would be of immense interest to the people of Carlow who go into the museum, much more so than when on the one or two visits they might make to the National Museum in their lifetime, they see a Stone Age axe head from Sligo or anywhere else in he country. I keep repeating this: the sooner we can get these finds out of the National Museum and down the country the better. I want to emphasise that I am not suggesting sending them out in boxes to somebody but where there is a museum which is playing its part, is well organised and is there to be seen in action, as many as possible exhibits should be sent, especially Stone Age axe heads which are not altogether unique — there are quite a lot available. I would not expect one of the rare chalices to be sent down and left in the country because there might not be sufficient protection there. I would ask the Minister to think over the concept of scattering many of the remains of our past, as far as possible to the places where they belong. If they are found in Carlow, Wexford or Kerry as many of them as possible should be sent back to their own location.

We appreciate the living and we have respect for the dead in our graveyards. I was delighted to see a scheme under the employment scheme where all the ancient tombstones in Carlow are being checked out and put on a list. Americans are writing at this stage to trace their ancestors. Many of these ancient monuments are history in their own way because they contain so many names going back so far and it is amazing what local historians can do to make a story out of a tombstone. All the cemeteries in the country should be researched, if it is possible, under our employment schemes to make sure that we, at this stage, record everything which is valuable. We all read the story about the person who was to interview an old man, but the old man died before he was interviewed. As we look back on our lifetime what appeared to be of no significance at one time would be very important now. I often think of the old people I did not speak to, from whom I did not write down stories. All these things are so important. It is easy to leave it to somebody else and this is the difficulty. We can say that somebody else will do it but it has to start with individuals. Everything possible should be done this year, next year and the following year, rather than saying it will be done by somebody later on in our lifetime.

We have the Historic Monuments Council which could be referred to as the governing body or the government. Governments are often accused of not being in touch with reality. I am quite sure that these members will all be experts in their own field whether professors of archaeology or anything else. I would have a lot of trust in the Historic Monuments Advisory Committees — indeed we had one from the Carlow County Council — because local people know so much and I think we will never pay enough tributes to the many people in the country who have spent their time restoring buildings and sometimes cemeteries. I phoned a person today and he was out engaged in voluntary work restoring one of these buildings, trying to keep the weeds from overpowering it. People who have a proven track record should be on these advisory committees. Some to them could play a leading role in the Historic Monuments Council because theory is one thing but the knowledge of what is happening on the ground is another. The people who have the real interest are those who are prepared to give their time working voluntarily. Often they spend their nights attending meetings and often they are out there physically doing the work themselves. Politicians may do a lot of talking about these things but very often they are not the people who do the work. We should make room for these people. They are the people who will save many of our ancient monuments.

I do not want to get too involved on the use of metal detectors. I have to admit I have a soft spot for them since on one occasion the County Council put tarmacadam across the front of my driveway.

Debate adjourned.

Seanad Éireann debate - Thursday, 30 Oct 1986

National Monuments (Amendment) Bill, 1986: Second Stage (Resumed).

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 30 Oct 1986