Heritage Schemes
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-04
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Gareth Scahill (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach

I thank the Minister of State for his response. He mentioned the National Monuments Service intends to establish in the coming years a support scheme for landowners across world heritage properties in Ireland. The blueprint for that idea is the Farming Rathcroghan project because over eight years it has demonstrated its ability. It has gone above and beyond accessing European funding. As the Minister of State mentioned, between the just transition fund and the European Innovation Partnership, 88% of its funding has been secured since 2019. Only 1% of its funding in that time came from the National Monuments Service.
The Minister of State mentioned the world heritage strategic investment fund. Some 2.8% of the project's funding came from that. The Heritage Council gave it approximately 6% of its funding over the period, as far as I know. At this point, the team on the ground has reached the end. It needs support and to be given the opportunity to try to source additional funding, which it has proved it is able to do in the past. If the Minister of State, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan, were here, I would ask him for a meeting. I will pass the request on to him to see if he can facilitate that meeting. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, for coming.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:35+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-04