Shannon heritage sites transfer
Deputy McNamara says Clare County Council is willing to take over Shannon heritage sites and asks for a senior person to resolve the issue. The Tánaiste says the transfer is sensible, funds will be needed for the sites, and the matter is already in process, though he is not sure whether an arbitrator is needed.
The Shannon Group was set up with three components. It has been successful in running two of those, notwithstanding much adversity. It has been less successful with the heritage sites and the group's management seems to be of the view that it is not a good fit with the Shannon Group, which has a commercial remit. Clare County Council has offered to take over these sites.
They have identified capital needs and they have set out a detailed paper on what those needs are. I have written to four Ministers and to the Taoiseach to ask for a high-level person to be appointed to bring them together. There are four Ministers involved, and it is bouncing around between them. There are State agencies, such as Fáilte Ireland, and of course Clare County Council, involved. It now looks like the deal is in jeopardy and there is a lot of toing and froing in the media between the Shannon Airport Group and Clare County Council. Does the Tánaiste, as incoming Taoiseach, think that we now need to appoint somebody high level to bring these groups together to get this over the line to bring finality?
Comment on this
The heritage sites either stay or they go.
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which I know he has raised before. Deputy Carey has also been briefing me on it in the past couple of weeks. It is a good thing Clare County Council is agreeing to take on these heritage sites. They will need money because work needs to be done on those sites and we want to bring them up to standard. There is a process ongoing to resolve this. I am not personally across it, so I do not know whether the right thing to do at this stage is to appoint an arbitrator or not. However, I do understand that this has been going on for a long time and that it has been bounced through different public bodies and that is not a satisfactory situation. I will look into it again and we will try to get to a resolution sooner rather than later.