Will the new Irish Heritage Trust be able to save our historical properties? Robert O'Byrne asks its new director, Kevin Baird

When the history of the Government comes to be written, one of its more surprising legacies will be the creation of an Irish version of Britain's National Trust.

Concern for the fate of the country house is not something hitherto associated with either Bertie Ahern or indeed the Fianna Fail party and no doubt in some quarters there will be mutterings that the interest has come rather too late.

Nevertheless, the Taoiseach was closely involved with the establishment of the Irish Heritage Trust, officially launched at Russborough House by Minister Dick Roche last July. The new organisation is in the process of finding not just its feet but even its offices.

Belfast man Kevin Baird, who took up his position as the IHT's director just 10 days ago, is currently operating on a mobile phone out of space provided by the Dublin Civic Trust. He seems happy with this situation.

"My ethos is that our resources have to go into the field of work, not into bureaucracy," he says.

An architect, until very recently he was the UK's Heritage Lottery fund manager for Northern Ireland with an almost unlimited budget, a staff of 10 and access to any number of consultants. Now he's one man in a small room; it's quite a change of scenario.

This won't long remain the case although Baird cautions that he doesn't "want to create some huge organisational machine. We just have to be big enough to be effective."

Effective doing what? This is a question that has been much asked in heritage circles ever since rumours of the IHT's inception began circulating three years ago after a report written by Dr Terence Dooley of Maynooth into the present circumstances of Ireland's surviving historic houses was launched by, naturally enough, Bertie Ahern.

Last year a steering group was formed to look into the possibility of an Irish National Trust-style organisation and, following the delivery of its verdict, the IHT came into being.

So it is a creation of the State. But Baird is keen to point out that the IHT is not an agent of government. Instead it is a fully constituted, limited company with charitable status and its own board. The latter is made up of country house owners, people with a track record in heritage and conservation and several senior business people.

That last group of individuals is especially important because a key feature of the IHT is that it should become self-supporting. In the short term, finding funds to pay Baird's monthly mobile phone bill won't be necessary because the Government has committed not just moral but also financial support for the next three years.

The annual sum to cover operating costs will be up to €500,000. But few three-year-olds are capable of looking after themselves and, as Baird accepts, it's unlikely that by 2009 the IHT will have raised enough money to forego further state aid.

"To get an organisation like this financially viable is going to take some time," he says. But he hopes that once the trust begins its work, at least a certain amount of income will begin to be generated.

As for the work, Baird agrees that, superficially, it won't be so different from that of the UK's National Trust.

The analogy, he says, "is a way people can understand immediately what we're about. The trust is an organisation that will care for special places and will open them to the public."

The IHT plans to acquire, through negotiation, properties of significant heritage value that are perceived to be at risk. Once acquisition has taken place, these will be conserved and maintained and opened up for public enjoyment and appreciation in perpetuity.

Those are the similarities with the UK organisation: now come the differences. One of the most fundamental is that, whereas the National Trust has traditionally declined to take on historic properties unless they come with a sufficiently large financial endowment or other income-generating assets such as land, this is unlikely to be the case in Ireland.

Our historic houses were once surrounded by thousands of acres but today that figure has shrunk to just a few hundred. The amount of land around the typical Irish historic property is insufficient to support it; a major reason why so many Irish houses were abandoned, sold or torn down during the last century and why such a large number of the survivors have had to be transformed into hotels.

Understanding the problem of inadequate assets, the IHT - again courtesy of the Government - is prepared to assist with the creation of endowments intended to sustain properties deemed worthy of support and preservation.

"We don't have a fighting fund," cautions Baird. But "the Government has committed to help us on a project-by-project basis with money to create endowments".

On these grounds, a grant of up to €5 million will be available to establish the first project's endowment, with the next four aided on a sliding scale.

Properties will not be chosen at random or in haste. Once Baird and his board have deemed a project worthy of support, it will be submitted to the Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government and then go before both his department and the Department of Finance.

Only after approval has been granted from all of these individuals and bodies will the funds be released.

Yes, agrees Baird, it's a long process "but there's a real willingness to make this work".

In addition, this year's budget introduced a new section into the 1997 Taxes Consolidation Act giving tax relief to those who gift a heritage property to the trust, with a ceiling of €6 million on the aggregate value of the heritage properties that can be approved in any one year.

In other words, there's an attractive financial incentive for owners of historic properties to engage in dialogue with the IHT over the future of their homes. This should greatly help the trust to expand its portfolio and to begin generating an income.

So what sort of properties will the IHT be taking on? Baird prefers not to give any hostages to fortune but he stresses again the importance of income generating.

This needn't take the forms associated with the UK's National Trust: charges for tours of an old house's principal rooms; sales of oven gloves; and cream teas in the former dairy.

"Every single one of these places will have a different set of features that can be developed," he insists. "We want to open them up and look at all the different paths that people can follow. Each case will be assessed on its own terms."

And, conscious that not everyone has come to appreciate the cultural importance of the Irish country house, the IHT wants to open up and celebrate a diverse range of features spanning architecture, social history, economics and horticulture as well as tell as many different stories as possible.

"There's going to be no fixed solution or approach that we'll apply to everything," says Baird, but "one of our big agendas is that of societal and economic benefit. If we're to take on somewhere, the benefit must be felt in the surrounding area".

Justifiably cautious, Baird declines to name names but says that despite being little more than two months old, "yes, the trust is negotiating on certain properties already. It's a very gentle process because of the complexities involved."

And he's keen to stress that the IHT expects to be in a position to do more than just take on direct responsibility for old houses. "Sometimes people are just not aware there are other options. We're not going to be the complete solution for every Irish historic property; we can only provide a solution for a particular set of circumstances. And you don't always have to take something on to provide the answer - sometimes you can help by offering advice and support."

Both sound attractive enough, but it's likely that cash-strapped owners of historic houses will be most interested in whatever financial help the IHT can provide.

From October 1st IHT will be on info@irishheritagetrust.ie