Duchas the Heritage Service is coming under increasing pressure from groups in the Midlands to resolve the problem of the Durrow High Cross site near Tullamore, Co Offaly.
A recent proposal to build a £400,000 centre close to the site was turned down. It had aimed to improve visitor access and facilities and to adapt the old church there to serve as a small museum and house the High Cross and grave slabs. The plan was rejected because the Minister for the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, did not think that the project could be completed within the lifetime of the Operational Programme for Tourism, which ends next year.
That meant that 75 per cent of the funding would not be made available for the project at what is regarded as one of Ireland's most historically interesting monastic sites.
Much of the problem hinges on who owns the site. In 1993 the Representative Church Body of the Church of Ireland agreed to have the site placed in State guardianship.
In 1994, the RCB transferred ownership of the church and surrounding graveyard to the State.
In the normal course of things this move would have enabled Duchas and the local Durrow High Cross Committee to proceed with developing the site.
But according to the Minister, who recently explained the position to the Dail, an adjoining landowner subsequently challenged the State's title to the land, having registered his own title in the Land Registry Office beforehand.
She said this was done without notice to her Department, that repeated efforts to negotiate a resolution had failed and that the Department had now begun legal proceedings to resolve the title issue.
This explanation was poorly received locally, especially by the committee, which blames Duchas for failing to assert its ownership of the site.
The committee has now demanded a meeting with the Minister, where it will be asking her for a speeding-up of the legal challenge, which is expected to be heard at the Circuit Court in Tullamore before the end of the year.
It feels that the whole area is losing out on the current tourism boom because of the delay and the limited and difficult access available to this ancient piece of Ireland's heritage.