Madam, - Lewis Clohessy (March 22nd) points to the fact that a report of 1985 recommended "that an independent property-owning trust, to be known as the Irish Trust for Historic Properties, be established as a company limited by guarantee with charitable status". However, it should be noted that the Dooley report of 2003 goes a stage further by recommending that "enabling legislation should be introduced to give statutory recognition and support to viable national trust type organisations for this country to safeguard the future of the remaining historic houses".
Government intervention is vitally important to engender confidence in all those who own or manage historic houses - be they original families, new private owners, institutions or even government departments - that a sympathetic and supportive organisation, with legislative standing, will be there to protect and help. It is essential that they feel secure that the State has sympathy with the efforts they are making to maintain historic buildings.
Mr Clohessy's letter refers to the second recommendation of the 1985 report that "no property be accepted by the trust which cannot be adequately endowed". If the 1985 report was suggesting that owners be responsible for this endowment, it should be emphasised that this could mean the calamitous loss of a number of extremely important historic houses.
The Dooley report found that some of the original family owners, for example, would simply not be in a position to provide such an endowment; as it is, they are struggling with everyday maintenance costs. Indeed, Mr Clohessy makes the relevant point that there has been "much loss and deterioration" since 1985, which will only continue if a trust, legislated for by the Government, is not established soon.
Of course, the economics of a trust "taking over" properties on a large scale is totally unfeasible and scarcely describes the complex and sensitive nature of what is involved in protecting this important segment of architectural heritage. In the present climate, the proposed trust must instead look to the provision of tax concessions that will encourage prospective donors to gift their properties to the trust and others to donate the funding necessary to protect them into the future.
The Dooley report strongly suggested that very often the most cost-effective way of safeguarding historic properties is to provide assistance for dedicated private owners, trustees or managers of State and institutionally owned properties to maintain and run these properties. In return all must appreciate that they have a certain responsibility to the State to act as guardians of its heritage and, where possible and practicable, to share that heritage with all of the people, not only of Ireland but of Europe and the wider world. In this way all the stakeholders can work towards attracting public sympathy and support for the proposed trust, whose establishment might even be appreciated as a means of balancing the loss of other elements of our built heritage sacrificed to modernisation. - Yours, etc.,
TERENCE DOOLEY, Centre for Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates, NUI Maynooth, Co Kildare.