Jim Higgins
Ceist:474 Mr. Higgins (Mayo) asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands the way in which an applicant can have a monument statutorily recorded by the Dúchas - the heritage service. [7678/99]
Written Answers. - Architectural Heritage.
One of the most significant effects of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act, 1994, was the extension of legal protection to cover all recorded monuments on an accelerated blanket basis. Section 12 of this Act provides for the establishment of a Record of Monuments and Places, RMP. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the RMP for the State as a whole was completed last December, as a result of which protection has now been extended to approximately 120,000 monuments nation-wide. The listing of a monument in the RMP requires anybody proposing to carry out works which in any way interferes with a recorded monument to give my Department two months written notice of such intention. A person contravening these provisions shall be liable to severe penalties under the Acts, the maximum penalty for offences being a fine of £50,000 and/or five years imprisonment.
The RMP for each county consists of OS constraint maps – six inch scale – with an accompanying index which shows the locations of monuments and places which are protected under the Acts. These are publicly exhibited at various venues around each county such as local authority offices, county libraries, farm development services and Teagasc offices.
If a feature which may be a suspected monument is discovered subsequent to the above record having been put in place, details of this feature together with its precise location should be forwarded to my Department, specifically to National Monuments and Historic Properties, Dúchas, 51 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, for consideration and possible inclusion in any later amendments to the RMP.