In the period since the enactment of the Historic and Archaeological Heritage and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023 at the end of 2023 a substantial portion of the Act has been commenced. This includes provisions enabling Ireland to ratify the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, provisions strengthening Ireland’s ability to participate in the World Heritage Convention, provisions enabling Ireland to accede (subject to further Government approval) to the 1995 Rome UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen and Illegally exported cultural objects, and provisions placing the work of inventorying archaeological sites and historic wrecks on a statutory footing.
In addition to this, my Department has been working actively on the preparation of the necessary secondary legislation and administrative structures which will enable the systems of monument protection and regulation of a range of activities to come into operation. This is a complex and detailed process, but I am satisfied that substantial progress has been made. My Department will continue this work with the aim of commencing most of the balance of the Act in the course of 2027.
As regards Dún Dealgan Motte, as this monument is, under the existing National Monuments Acts a national monument of which I am guardian, it will be covered by automatic transitional provisions of the Act of 2023.
In particular, following the establishment of the new Register of Monuments and its inclusion in that register it will automatically become a national monument in my guardianship under the Act of 2023, and so will automatically have special protection under the Act of 2023.
In the interim, pending the commencement of the relevant provisions of the new Act and the establishment of the new Register the existing high level of protection afforded to national monuments in my guardianship under the National Monuments continues to be in force.
