Some €8.5 million in Government funding for conservation and development work on the Great Blasket Island, two miles off the coast of Co Kerry, has been announced.
The funding follows a report submitted two weeks ago to the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, by Kerry county manager Mr Martin Nolan.
The report, the result of a forum set up to consider the Great Blasket's future, highlighted an urgent need for conservation work on the island's buildings, including the homes of Irish writers Peig Sayers, Muiris Ó Suilleabháin and Tomás Ó Criomhthain.
There was broad agreement the island should be proposed for inclusion on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, it said. Access needed to be improved and visitor numbers restricted. The funding was jointly announced by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, and Ms de Valera.
Ms de Valera said she was committed to implementing the broad thrust of the recommendations of the Blasket Island Forum Report, subject to agreement with all the landowners.
The island has been uninhabited year-round since 1953, but it attracts a large number of visitors during the summer.
A vacuum developed because of unsuccessful attempts by the State to acquire the island from An Blascaod Mór Teoranta, the company which owns four-fifths of it. In 1997 the Supreme Court struck down the Great Blasket Act of 1989, under which the island was to be acquired by the State and turned into a national park.