Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle, and I also thank for him allowing me to raise it on these many occasions, given the number of other important issues that have been decided on. I welcome the Minister of State to the House to reply to the question.

First, I will speak to the significance of Castletown House historically in respect of the administration of power, as a seat of Parliament and its relevance to this House, being the residence of the speaker of the Irish Parliament once upon a time, and the fact that it has considerable historical and architectural significance and is now moving into the next century with its significance from a tourism point of view, to the extent that the proposals are to bring roughly 1 million people through its gates in any given year. Incidentally, it is entirely appropriate that County Kildare should be well represented in the House at a time when there is discussion of the subject in this House.

I hope that the Minister of State has some good news for us. If he has not good news this evening, well then, we will have to postpone the announcement of the good news but not for long. Time is running out.

I say that because we have discussed this matter repeatedly over a year. The Minister of State’s predecessor set up a working group. The only problem was the group did not work and it still does not work. One should avoid working groups in future and try to set up an action group instead that will produce results.

By now the issue has gone bigger than Castletown House. This is about whether the State has the right to gain access to and egress from its property, the property it owns. The State and the OPW have the right to protect the property for present and future generations and to justify the money that has been correctly spent on the house in recent years to the extent of €25 million. All that will go down the drain unless we can ensure that we have ready access without anyone’s leave or wayleave. That access was provided. The response has been that we have an "alternative access" but we do not. It is nearly 300 years since the house was built and access down the main street in Celbridge was quite adequate at that time but it is no longer a feature. It cannot work. There is no access and now a gate crosses the access that was negotiated by the OPW for obvious reasons, namely that it did not have access and that has operated for the past 15 or 20 years. It worked satisfactorily. It was not an ideal solution. It was an interim solution and like all interim solutions it must be revisited.

I hope the Minister of State has good news. I know he has worked hard to try to bring about a solution that is acceptable and not, I emphasise, an interim solution. I hope it will set a precedent for all other State-owned properties throughout the country. The State has responsibility to protect and preserve for present and future generations the property that it owns for all the purposes we have talked about in the past. If it is not allowed to do that, then there is no sense in spending money on something that it cannot gain access to. It would be a terrible precedent if it were to pass that the public, as part of the State, could not have access to a historical mansion of that nature and importance.

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