Conservation of historic buildings and job creation are the goals of the new Built Heritage Jobs Leverage Scheme from which Galway city and county is to benefit.
The Minister for the Arts Jimmy Deenihan announced the new scheme yesterday with a total of €225,000 being made available to Galway’s local authorities to fund schemes and works to protect the city and county’s historic buildings.
County Galway has a total of 1,398 structures on the Register of Protected Structures - 812 in the Galway County Council area and 586 in the Galway City Council territory.
A total of €127,000 has been allocated to the county council and €98,000 to the city council, and applications ranging from €2,500 and €15,000 are being invited to fund works on protected buildings. Successful applications must match the funding received from this project with private funding thereby encouraging investment in protected structures. The scheme will operate through 2014 and will be administered by the local authorities.
Fine Gael Galway West TD and chair of the Fine Gael Committee for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Sean Kyne has “warmly welcomed” the funding scheme.
“The scheme will link job creation with conserving and protecting our built heritage,” he said. “I would encourage owners or occupiers or indeed community groups with an involvement in a protected structure or building to consider making an application to the councils
