State happy to pass the buck on funding to restore buildings

A year has passed since the previous administration published a major inter-departmental report, Strengthening the Protection of the Architectural Heritage, which put forward a raft of recommendations, including the allocation of £5 million to the Heritage Council.

Michael Starrett, the council's chief executive, said it was now "insisting" on the allocation of an interim sum of £3 million for 1998.

Failure to provide this would preclude any major capital investment to deal with the current backlog.

Predictably, the Heritage Council receives regular representations from TDs and even Ministers on behalf of constituents seeking grants to restore historic buildings.

But where do these Ministers think the money is going to come from when the Government has not allocated it?

As it is, the bulk of the council's £2.9 million budget comes not from the Exchequer, but from the National Lottery. In other words, the State is not prepared to "put its money where its mouth is" to help protect historic buildings which are officially listed for preservation.

David Slattery, chairman of the council's architectural heritage committee, said it made a mockery of the listing system if the State was not prepared to provide the funding necessary to assist the owners of listed buildings with essential repairs and maintenance.

"It's an irrelevance to list something and say `this is a monument, a heritage building, a valuable property' and it doesn't matter whether anybody spends any money on maintaining it, or whether the unfortunate people who own it have any money to keep it going."

In Scotland the budget for architectural conservation runs to £14 million a year, "and that's on top of the millions they've been spending over the years", he said. Northern Ireland, too, allocates more money for the preservation of its historic buildings than does the Republic.

"One of the major issues we have to take on board is an inventory of all the churches in Ireland, because without doubt they are the most important collection of buildings in the whole country, not only architecturally, but as landmarks and in terms of social history.

"We've all viewed with concern the inability of the Church of Ireland to care for their buildings because of their dwindling flock and inability to raise money. But that situation is now tracking into the Roman Catholic Church as well, with declining congregations and money to spend.

"One way or another, if we don't provide funds to look after these buildings, as they do in France and Germany, even by increasing taxes to pay for it, we're going to have a situation in 10 or 20 years' time when there will be churches falling down all round this country," he warned.

Yet at a ceremony to mark the Heritage Council's publication of its three-year plan, which seeks an almost fourfold increase in funding, the Minister for Arts and Heritage, Ms de Valera, made it clear that there was no Government commitment to providing this level of finance.

She went further and wished the council well in its efforts to raise money from "non-State sources", including the private sector. Some of those present found this statement by the Minister demeaning, even shaming, as it seemed the Government was simply passing the buck.

It would also appear that any future State funding will go not to the Heritage Council but to the Department of the Environment, for distribution among the local authorities, in a complete reversal of one of the main recommendations of the 1996 inter-departmental report.

This is a matter of considerable concern to the Heritage Council, not least because most local authorities have no expertise in relation to historic buildings, and not one of them employs a full-time conservation officer.

How, therefore, can they prioritise how money should be spent?

David Slattery believes that the Department's determination to get its hands on whatever money becomes available is a "very short-sighted" view.

But even at a time when the Exchequer is awash with money, the Government seems unwilling to bring itself to allocate the relative pittance which would secure the future of major buildings at risk. The matter is being "strung out" pending enactment of new legislation.

"The truth is that we have a First World economy with Third World resources", said one architectural historian. And it's not only the Heritage Council which has suffered; the National Monuments and Historic Properties Service currently employs just one architect.

Even from a tourism viewpoint, David Slattery believes, the Government needs to recognise its responsibilities. "Most tourists come here not to fish, to play golf, to shoot things or swim in the sea. Bord Failte's research shows that they want to see our historic buildings."

Peter Pearson, who is a member of the Heritage Council, said the excuse in the past was that the State had no money for architectural conservation, but this was no longer the case. "For years, a handful of people have been holding the fort in this area. Now it's payback time."