New proposals to give legal protection to landscapes will be brought before the Cabinet before Christmas, the Minister for the Environment has said.
Speaking at the Heritage Council's Landscape Conference in Co Offaly this morning, John Gormley said a new National Monuments Bill would offer two levels of protection to the landscape and ensure "the sort of problems encountered at Tara" during the construction of the N3 would not reoccur.
The National Monuments Bill aims to consolidate and update older legislation on national monuments and will also introduce new measures.
Two levels of protection will be afforded to the landscape under the proposed legislation. The first will offer protection to a small number of landscapes of outstanding importance and the second will protect landscapes at a more local level.
The Minister said he had not brought the proposals to cabinet yet, but he hoped to do so before Christmas.
"I don't see it as being particularly controversial," he said. "There is a broad recognition that we made mistakes in the past; these need to be rectified."
Protection for the landscape was also contained in the Planning & Development (Amendment) Bill introduced to the Seanad last week, Mr Gormley said. The Bill contains a legal definition of landscape for the first time in Irish legislation. The definition was based on the one set out in the European Landscape Convention, he said. It also introduces stronger measures on land rezoning.
"Ireland has suffered from chronic over zoning with the attendant social, economic and cultural consequences that this entails," he said. "I am determined we will have an evidence based rational for future development."
Chairman of the Heritage Council Conor Newman welcomed the Minister's announcement and said using the definition of landscape based on the European model would ensure "everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet".
