Heritage Sites
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
============================================================

Kevin Boxer Moran (IND), Longford-Westmeath

I agree with the Deputy in one sense but I would say that the OPW is very good and works very closely with all stakeholders in relation to the castle and the priory and all the other OPW sites. We promote all our sites very well. Last year alone, there were some 50 million visitors to OPW sites across the country, and no place more than the west of Ireland which got a lot of visitors. On the other hand, we have to supervise the priory. The Deputy knows the damage that has been caused. It would be a different situation if we were here this morning and we had not had the priory supervised and damage had been done. Then, the Deputy would be asking me what I was going to do about it. I will work closely with the Deputy, as I have on other things that he has raised.
In terms of tourism, my Department works closely with other Departments and Fáilte Ireland to try to promote tourism, where possible. I was the first Minister to allow kids under the age of 12 into all of our sites. I have also done a pilot scheme for under 18s, to improve the visitor numbers up and down the country, and it has proven to be very successful. In relation to the question the Deputy asked me about a longer opening schedule, it is something I will look at.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11