Taoiseach's espousal of the Big House is at odds with Government's record of dismantling safeguards to protect State's heritage, writes Frank McDonald.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern admitted two years ago that he has taken "a fair bit of personal hit" over his championship of Ireland's surviving great houses, and the plan to establish a national trust to secure their future. But that hasn't stopped him waxing almost lyrically about these impressive relics of a bygone age.
For too long, many didn't see the Big House as "part of a shared Irish heritage. Nor indeed was it viewed as a heritage worth preserving. Fortunately, times and opinions have changed radically since then. The Irish Big House is increasingly valued today for its architectural significance; for the wealth of design created for the most part by Irish craftspeople; and for the valuable insight it offers us into an era that has had such an influence on shaping our history".
Borrowing from Elizabeth Bowen, he went on: "To me the description of the Big House as an island - in essence, a world of its own - captures the enduring fascination of these properties. For the Big House was indeed a self-contained world, a centre that performed a variety of functions. From family home to fine art repository and social gathering space to employment hub, each Big House represented a microcosm of the life of the landed class during their heyday."
That's what the Taoiseach told the third annual Historic Houses of Ireland conference in NUI Maynooth on September 9th - his office had specifically requested an invitation for Mr Ahern to speak so he could use the event to make an "important announcement" on a matter dear to the hearts of participants.
The announcement concerned the Government's decision to establish an independent Irish Heritage Trust, which would be able to acquire important heritage buildings at "imminent risk", with the aid of endowment funds - partly subscribed by the State - to cover their conservation, maintenance and presentation in perpetuity.
It is intended that the trust would raise a large part of these endowment funds through private and corporate donations, which would be eligible for tax relief, as would donations of heritage properties to be cared for by the new body. This is in line with the recommendations of a report by Indecon economic consultants.
But the driving force behind the proposal is David Davies, a banker and former fundraiser for the Tory party in Britain, who bought Abbeyleix House, in Co Laois - one-time seat of the Viscounts de Vesci - less than 10 years ago and regularly opens it to the public. He is also a leading member of the Irish Georgian Society.
Last month, Sir David was appointed chairman of a steering group to set up the Irish Heritage Trust. Other members include Irish Georgian Society chairman Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin; Samantha Leslie, of Castle Leslie, Co Monaghan, and Carmel Naughton, former chairwoman of the National Gallery, who lives in Stackallen House, Co Meath.
Sir David was instrumental in commissioning a major report on the future of Ireland's historic houses by Terence Dooley of NUI Maynooth. Jointly funded by the Irish Georgian Society and Department of the Environment, it was launched in September 2003 by Bertie Ahern at a function in 20 Lower Dominick Street, one of Dublin's finest Georgian houses.
Before this event, at which the Taoiseach first announced that a "national trust" would be established, his office inquired if there were armchairs in the house for a private meeting with Sir David. There weren't, so a leading member of the Irish Georgian Society volunteered to transport a pair of comfortable chairs from her home in Cabinteely.
After his 20-minute meeting with Sir David, in a room with a lately restored rococo ceiling, Mr Ahern said: "We had something like 800 great houses in Ireland at one stage, and now it's down to about 70 or 72." Unless steps were taken to protect the remainder, "we'd be down to 15 houses within 20 to 25 years", he warned.
"I really believe that would be a terrible loss to the country in the long term," he told The Irish Times.
Referring to a Cabinet meeting the previous week at Emo Court, Co Laois, he spoke of "the huge number of passionate people involved in the walks, the gardens, bird-watchers and everything else, not just the owner of the house".
Could this be the same Bertie Ahern who was the prime mover in dismantling Dúchas, the Heritage Service, because it was seen to be getting in the way of "progress", and who has made ill-informed comments about how major road projects have been held up "because of swans, snails and the occasional person hanging out of a tree"?
His view that the Kildare bypass was delayed for years by a snail - Vertigo angustior - is simplistic. The real reason was that the decision to run a 3km stretch of it through a deep cutting ignored official advice that this could drain the Curragh aquifer, dry out the Japanese Gardens and damage Pollardstown Fen, a habitat of international importance.
The Taoiseach has also described archaeologists as "the fastest growing profession in the country", costing the State €100 million a year. In the Dáil in November 2004, he said they had grown from a "handful" to a "posse", and he didn't believe things had changed so radically to "justify this level of demand".
Last January he dismissed the controversy over the M3 and Tara as "a row about who was there 5,000 years ago". Though he didn't know who inhabited Tara, he was sure they were "very significant people", but there had to be some finality about what must be done "if we want to be progressive, if we want to be modern".
Perhaps he regards the four-storey hotel rising up just 17 metres (55 feet) from the ramparts of Trim Castle as "progressive" and "modern". Certainly, Martin Cullen had no compunction in vetoing an appeal to An Bord Pleanála by heritage officials against what they saw as its "adverse and unacceptable" impact on the castle's setting.
The Trim saga was well documented in a recent report by the Centre for Public Inquiry. Referring to Mr Cullen's decision not to permit the appeal to proceed, which ultimately cleared the way for this appalling development, the report quoted a spokesman as saying: "The Minister was responsible. The buck stops with the elected person."
During 2003 recommendations from heritage officials to make appeals to An Bord Pleanála against local authority planning decisions were rejected by Mr Cullen as often as they were accepted; his justification for this hands-on approach was that appeals were being made in his name and it would be "totally remiss" of him not to get involved.
One well-placed source in the Department of the Environment said that during Mr Cullen's period in charge, "there was no point in recommending appeals in certain instances because they would never have got beyond the Minister's office". Archaeologists and other professionals on the staff have felt "marginalised" ever since.
Last year new legislation amending the 1930 National Monuments Act gave the Minister for the Environment sole and unlimited discretion over any national monument by empowering him to give directions "covering such matters as the preservation, restoration, excavation, recording or demolition" of such a monument.
In doing so, he can consider any factors "to the extent that they appear to the Minister to be relevant in exercising discretion" about whether to "demolish or remove wholly or in part or to disfigure, deface, alter, or in any manner injure or interfere with" a national monument - without even having to inform the Oireachtas.
Minister for the Environment in Northern Ireland Jeff Rooker told a recent conference in Belfast that agencies involved in protecting heritage and the environment should operate at arm's length from government. What he had heard of the situation in the Republic was "appalling", he said, adding: "Ministers shouldn't have those powers."
Every day on his way to work the Taoiseach passes by the former St George's Church on Hardwicke Place, one of Dublin's most important neoclassical buildings. For the past 15 years or more, its decaying triple-tiered steeple has been festooned with scaffolding; indeed, the scaffolding had to be replaced this year because it, too, was in decay.
Not a cent in State funding has been provided for the restoration of the steeple, even though it is one of the major landmarks in his constituency.
The total allocation this year for grant schemes and other State supports to protect historic buildings was only €10.6 million - less than a fifth of Deloitte and Touche's consultancy fees.
Mr Ahern has pledged an initial Exchequer allocation of €5.5 million for the Irish Heritage Trust, although this level of grant aid would barely reroof a couple of the houses he wants to save. That's not far below the 2005 allocation of €6.85 million for a grant scheme to assist owners of protected structures, which is also a drop in the ocean.
There are thousands of protected structures throughout the State, some of them in desperate need of repair or restoration. A national architectural inventory is being compiled on a county-by-county basis, with some 10,000 historic buildings recommended for protection. But no records are kept on whether these are adopted locally.
The statutory Heritage Council administers its own grants scheme, disbursing some €1.2 million a year. In individual cases, from houses to architectural follies, even small sums can bridge the gap between saving a building and allowing it to decay. But the council itself would concede that it is quite unable to match the scale of need.
Ian McQuiston, chairman of the Historic Buildings Council in Northern Ireland, is as perplexed as anyone about Bertie Ahern's obsession with stately homes. "If I was him, I wouldn't start with them," he said.
"You have to look at heritage protection in a much more rounded way, because vernacular buildings are just as important."
He was among the large attendance at the North's Environment and Heritage Service recent "vision conference" in Belfast. What was remarkable about it was the positive attitude towards heritage and environmental protection. As its director Richard Rogers said: "The environment is not an obstacle to progress, but the whole basis of it."
In the Republic, it is viewed rather differently, which is one of the main reasons why it was ranked last week at the bottom of a league table for environmental protection by the European Environment Agency. Saving a few stately homes while allowing "progress" to let rip all around them will do nothing to change the agency's grim verdict.