Details of a £100 million expenditure plan for the built heritage under the National Development Plan were revealed by the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, in her home constituency of Clare yesterday.
She also indicated a shift in Department policy, from the provision of visitor facilities to conservation of the national heritage.
The biggest single project will be the restoration of the Palm House at the Botanic Gardens in Dublin, estimated to cost about £10 million. Work will be carried out on 15 major centres, amounting to £78 million over the next six years, £65 million of which will be on major projects and £13 million on minor works, covering about 100 sites.
For monuments and historical sites not under State control, £9.8 million is being allocated towards architectural and archaeological surveys, the agreement of a code of practice with the National Roads Authority and the opening of discussions with the Irish Home Builders Association, the Irish Ports Association and Bord Gais.
Efforts would be made to recruit archaeologists to the planning authorities, Ms de Valera said. Among the other major projects are the re-roofing of the east wing of Kilmainham Gaol, conservation works on the cathedral at the Rock of Cashel and structural works at Clonmacnoise. Repairs to the monastic retaining walls on Skellig Michael, off the Kerry coast, will involve stonemasons training in rock climbing. Materials will have to be flown in by helicopter. Refurbishment works will also be carried out on St Stephen's Green and the paving around it, and the Phoenix Park.
The same architectural team from the Office of Public Works which carried out the award-winning work on the Curvilinear Range is working on the Palm House.
The State's largest greenhouse, it is a teak and wrought-iron structure built in 1884. Measuring 64 feet at its highest point, its tropical inhabitants will have to be moved temporarily when work begins.
In Co Clare, a £1 million allocation will be made separately for Ennis Friary, Quin Abbey and Kilfenora Cathedral, and £850,000 has been earmarked for guide accommodation on Scattery Island in the Shannon Estuary.
Ms de Valera said she had concluded that "the emphasis in the period to 2006 should shift from the provision of visitor facilities to the conservation of heritage properties".
An allocation of £3.5 million to enhance the Department's education and visitor services has been made, aimed at attracting visitors to less popular sites.
A sum of £1 million will go towards the installation of information panels at popular sites which have no guide service and £4.5 million has been set aside for the upgrading of exhibitions and audio-visual displays at major sites such as Glendalough, the Rock of Cashel, Parkes Castle in Co Leitrim and the Hill of Tara.
An apprenticeship programme, costing £1.7 million, would develop skills in carpentry, stonecutting and stonemasonry. "The number of craftspeople directly engaged by my Department to undertake the various maintenance and conservation works is in the region of 90. I consider this to be inadequate," she said.
She added that there were now 67 sites in the State with visitor access facilities compared to just two in 1969. But there was a gap in the ownership of national monuments, she said. Of 120,000 monuments, just 740 are State-owned.
Many architectural field systems, tower-house ruins and standing stones are in private ownership. Ms de Valera noted that the Poulnabrone dolmen in the Burren was privately owned but she was trying to improve access to it.
She said she was "prepared to look at proposals for acquisitions very carefully" but said that State funds were often seen as "a bottomless pit" to prospective sellers of sites.