Ireland's national inventory of heritage sites is not used by the Department of Environment in nominating sites for designation as Unesco World Heritage Sites, it has emerged.
According to a UN report on Ireland's application of the World Heritage Convention, "inventories established at local and national level have not been used as a basis for selecting world heritage sites".
The report, which has been seen by The Irish Times, is also critical of the State's "fragmentation of services for protection, conservation and preservation and the lack of research and training programmes [ that] also weaken their efforts to ensure site protection".
Friends of the Irish Environment says it would appear that the failure to use the national inventory is the reason why important archaeological features, such as the Hill of Tara, have never been designated as World Heritage Sites.
The environmental group is one of 16 non-governmental agencies, including An Taisce and Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment, which have signed a petition calling for the UN to intervene in the row over the route of the M3 motorway.
The petition calls for an alternative route for the motorway that would be "in accordance with the principles of Agenda 21 and the World Heritage Convention".
However, while the department acknowledged that it did not use the national inventory of heritage sites in nominations for World Heritage status, it said it used "a tentative list which is required under the World Heritage Convention".
A spokesman said the current tentative list was drawn up in 1992 by a panel of experts. He added that the criticism related to re-organisation that had happened pre-2005.
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