WIDE ranging statutory powers to protect buildings of interest throughout the country will be introduced by the Department of the Environment.
A list of buildings of artistic, architectural and historical interest will be drawn up using the resources of the National Inventory of Architecture. Buildings identified by it as being of regional or higher significance will be recommended to local authorities for protection.
Up to now local authorities have had different standards for listing buildings and this new approach will standardise the way in which they are listed for protection.
The proposed legislation will protect the entire listed building in future, including the interior and curtilage. "Too many interiors have been lost because they were not protected unless they were specifically listed in the development plan.
"My proposals will ensure that where a building is protected, the whole building interior and curtilage will be subject to that protection," the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, told a conference on the built environment in Cork yesterday.
Once a building was formally proposed to be added to the list it would be subject to immediate protection while any works that would affect the character of a building would require planning permission.
But Mr Howlin said he recognised this proposal could be onerous for owners of protected buildings. As a result owners and occupiers of protected buildings would be entitled to a declaration from the local authority which would let them know in advance the types of work the planning authority would consider would affect the character of the building.
While the Constitution protected the rights of property holders local authorities would be encouraged to take a more active role in ensuring protected buildings did not become neglected.
"We must try and ensure that the mistakes of past decades are not repeated when property speculators bought up Georgian terraces and allowed the buildings to fall into disrepair so they could be demolished, leaving free valuable sites," said Mr Howlin.
"My proposals will bring better balance as between the operation of the two codes of legislation concerned."
The Inventory, which is administered by the Department of the Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, will be used as a national data base to record Ireland's built environment.