Public Consultation on Strategy for World Heritage in Ireland 2024 – 2034

The public consultation has been extended until the 15 April 2024.

Prior to the finalisation of the draft Strategy for World Heritage in Ireland 2024 – 2034, the department is seeking any views on its vision, draft goals, strategic objectives, and actions and on challenges for delivering the strategy.

The purpose of a Strategy for World Heritage in Ireland 2024 – 2034 is to provide the overarching framework for effectively implementing the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention in Ireland over the next ten years.

The key reasons for developing this national strategy are:

• to fulfil Ireland’s obligation as a signatory to the World Heritage Convention to implement its objectives and to conserve, present and transmit to future generations the outstanding universal values of its World Heritage Properties
• to build World Heritage capacity and raise awareness across government and all stakeholders of the requirements and obligations of the World Heritage Convention, the significance and values of World Heritage status, the processes required by UNESCO for progressing World Heritage Property nominations, and the potential benefits that inscription to the World Heritage List can bring
• the enhancement of the role of local communities and stakeholders in the stewardship and management of World Heritage Properties and Tentative List sites
• to adopt a more integrated and multidisciplinary approach to World Heritage protection and management both nationally and locally
• to ensure the protection of existing and future World Heritage Properties is in alignment with the wider framework of sustainable development.

Additional background information on the draft strategy is available in the public consultation document, which can be downloaded below.

The strategy deals with World Heritage which refers to cultural and natural heritage sites, monuments, buildings, places, and landscapes of cultural, historical, scientific or other forms of significance.

Living heritage, such as cultural practices and expressions, is separately dealt with as Intangible Cultural Heritage (under the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage).

We are inviting any interested individuals, groups or organisations to share their views on the strategy by completing this online survey.

The survey is hosted on EUSurvey, a survey platform that is supported by the European Commission. Please use Chrome/Edge/Safari/Firefox browsers to complete the online survey.

The closing date for completed surveys is 9pm on Wednesday 10 April 2024.

All submissions and comments submitted to the department for this purpose are subject to release under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2014 and the European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007-2014. Submissions are also subject to Data Protection legislation.

Personal, confidential or commercially sensitive information should not be included in your submission and it will be presumed that all information contained in your submission is releasable under the Freedom of Information Act 2014.

A privacy statement relating to any personal data that may be provided is available for download under the documents heading.

Your feedback will be recorded, collated, analysed, and evaluated to determine appropriate changes to the draft strategy. Please note that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage may publish a summary of the survey results and may also publish anonymised data from the responses received.

Please note that submissions received may be made available (without personal information) on the department’s website (worldheritageireland.ie) and may be shared, unless otherwise requested. In any event, all submissions received will be subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act and Data Protection legislation.