Members of the committee have absolute privilege but this does not apply to witnesses appearing before the committee. Members are reminded of the long standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official by name in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Witnesses have been informed of the joint committee's terms of reference and that the debate is necessarily confined to transport issues. Witnesses have been informed the presentation is limited to ten minutes and there will be no questions and answers.
M3 through Tara-Skryne Valley: Presentation.
Dr. Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin
I would like to share time with Vincent Salafia and he will speak first.
Okay.
Mr. Vincent Salafia
I thank the committee for inviting us. I will try to keep my comments brief and on the point of transport. As I have made a submission to the committee regarding the potential legal challenge to the M3, I would rather speak about the broader transport implications and members are welcome to ask questions with regard to legal matters.
There are no questions or answers. It is a straight submission.
Mr. Salafia
The issue of the M3 hinges on a cost benefit analysis, which puts a price tag on the Hill of Tara. The hill is needlessly under threat due to the desire to develop land. It is purely a question of profit for small powerful lobbies such as Meath Chamber of Commerce, all being done in the name of a publicly funded transport system. Legitimate public and private transport needs are secondary to property development and land speculation.
The issue is how public money is being squandered to facilitate private multinational multi-billion euro rezonings and property developments such as the strategic development zone in Navan rather than the stated purpose of relieving traffic congestion. The sooner the road is completed, the sooner profits can be realised. That is why the current route has been immobilised when all indications are that there has been a routing error that must be corrected.
Proper planning of strategic development zones necessitates that the Navan to Dublin railway should be reopened but the Government still maintains it is not a viable option. This is fuzzy logic. A recent study proved that the route could pay for itself in ten years. Various real estate development projects are underway. We have the strategic development zone; development beginning at the Blundellstown interchange; a development plan for the Hill of Tara itself; the development of Dunshaughlin, which was recently turned down by An Bord Pleanála because there was no proper infrastructure and huge pipes are now being laid in Dunsaney; Dunlop land at Edoxtown, which is close to one of the proposed routes; and a large shopping centre in Dunshaughlin owned by property interests in Navan.
With Mr. Dunlop a resident of Dunshaughlin——
Mr. Salafia is not entitled to name anyone outside the committee. I want him to withdraw the statement and anything to do with the gentleman's name mentioned.
Mr. Salafia
I withdraw that statement.
Echoes of Carrickmines where the Flood tribunal investigating the link between the routing of the M50——
This has nothing to do with Carrickmines. This is the M3 and it has nothing to do with any other route.
Mr. Salafia
I am addressing broader transport issues and that was an example.
Given the problems there, what measures have been put in place to prevent this scenario being repeated? Is the M3 the best value for public money in terms of current public and private transport needs? I would answer "no". It does not meet the immediate safety and economic needs. Public money is being squandered because public process for the M3 was a waste, with experts and the public being ignored leading to a possibly predetermined and certainly erroneous result. It was squandered on Oireachtas hearings with experts and the public excluded, which had a predetermined result apparently. There is no legal requirement that the director of the National Museum and the chief archaeologist——
I find this presentation offensive. It would appear to prejudge what the committee will do and it calls into question our integrity in this regard. I object in the strongest terms to the language used. The presentation breaches the guidelines the Chair outlined at the outset. The people who appear before us should accept the guidelines, which we must accept in terms of our inability to ask questions, to which we signed up at the beginning on the basis of the presentation we were to be given. It is highly unfair that such an approach has been taken.
I concur with Senator Dooley. We have given a lot of latitude but it has gone over the line.
I always believe in giving maximum latitude but I must agree it is going over the line. Mr. Salafia does not have privilege and cannot name people during proceedings. Innuendo is all that has been suggested in his submission so far.
Mr. Salafia
I apologise to the committee——
Mr Salafia should also apologise to the public and to the individual he has named.
Mr. Salafia
Absolutely. No malice was intended. I am simply trying to describe what I see as a member of the public and describe experiences in the environment committee, which is not directly linked to this committee, but where certain authorities have been excluded apparently.
That has nothing to do with us. What the environment committee has done is totally separate.
Mr. Salafia
An invitation for submissions to the committee was made in December giving a date of 12 January to file letters of intent. We believe 2,000 letters were submitted. A large proportion of those people were not given the chance to respond.
To reiterate, it was not 2,000 letters but approximately 200 similar letters that arrived.
Mr. Salafia
I completely disagree. We actually have photocopies of all the letters.
On a point of order, Mr. Salafia is calling into account the credibility of the staff of this committee. I object to this. It is outrageous for him to object to a statement made by the Chairman and the clerk to the committee. I ask that we suspend the sitting until the allegation is withdrawn. I have the utmost confidence in the clerk and staff of this committee and their intelligence and capacity to count. If delegates cannot come before the committee and accept the word of the Chairman and the secretariat, it is pointless to continue.
There is a serious problem of misinformation. On a number of occasions it has been reported in the public media that we received 2,000 or 3,000 submissions.
Mr. Salafia
I have photocopies of all the submissions made. I have a receipt from the committee, received after they had been submitted.
The integrity of the staff of this committee is first class. We have never had a problem with anything of this nature. Mr. Salafia sent most of the submissions to the Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government, not this committee.
Mr. Salafia
I will explain the process. We collected letters.
Mr. Salafia should continue his presentation. He is wasting his time and has approximately four minutes left.
Mr. Salafia
I will hand over to——
We are fairly thick-skinned politicians. Whereas there may be queries about Mr. Salafia's presentation, we should not harass him but raise the problems. For him to get a fusillade of abuse from the other side is not appropriate behaviour from the committee.
Senator, I would like to point out that we must be fair to everybody.
Absolutely. The Chairman's interventions were appropriate with regard to Mr. Salafia's time——
We must protect and be fair to the staff of this committee who have always been up-front. We do not want somebody suggesting otherwise. What has been suggested is that submissions were made to the clerk to the committee that were not brought to the notice of its members. That is not the position.
I certainly agree. We are entitled to an explanation and to vindicate the integrity of the staff of the committee which is held in high regard by all of us. However, I noticed there was a constant fusillade that would throw any ordinary person off his or her track when giving evidence. We are thick-skinned enough to be able to bear anything.
Mr. Salafia is well trained in cross-heckling in his other profession.
There are two people in it then. However, I am sensitive and find it deeply disturbing.
Mr. Salafia
I will hand over to Dr. Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin to make our presentation.
Dr. Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin
I thank the committee for allowing us to address it. I am head of the department of Celtic studies in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. As well as speaking for our group, I also represent my colleagues both here and abroad who have expressed their dismay at the chosen route.
We are not opposed to the M3. We want the 14 kilometre section of the proposed road through the royal demesne of Tara, the Tara-Skryne valley, rerouted. While we acknowledge there is a critical need for good transport infrastructure, transport is not about cars but people. There is an urgent need for a long-term transport policy that concentrates on the provision of a good public transport system, particularly in the greater Dublin area, coupled with an imaginative policy that does not include spreading Dublin commuters further and further away from where they work.
We welcome the decision to open the railway line to Dunboyne but it should be extended to Navan. The railway line around the town should also be used. The provision of motorways encourages people to use cars. Railways will not make a profit. As a result, they do not lend themselves to public private partnerships, in contrast with the tolled motorways designed to make huge profits for private companies.
It is disingenuous to label us anti-road. We are against the current transport policy of the National Roads Authority which commissions reports and then ignores the advice given. This road will be delayed indefinitely because the warnings have been ignored. The NRA cannot claim it did not know of possible delays. It has been warned at every point in the process.
How can we discuss roads and ignore the dreaded A and E words, not accident and emergency but archaeology and environment? Since when did these become dirty words? Even the NRA employs archaeological expert companies which give seminars on heritage. In 1999 the NRA commissioned a report from the archaeological company, VJ Kiely Limited, which stated that within the core area of the Hill of Tara there were in excess of 75 known archaeological sites. This represents one of the highest, if not the highest, concentration of sites——
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin has moved into the archaeological area.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
I think the Chairman will find it is related to transport.
It is the straight transport element that we want to deal with in this committee.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
In 2000 the NRA commissioned a route selection report from Halcrow Barry which stated that the effect of the chosen route on the Hill of Tara and its outlying monuments was profound——
Excuse me——
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
Please do not interrupt me; I was sent to read this into the record without interruption.
I am Chairperson of this committee. If Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin is not prepared to abide by the guidelines of the committee, we have a problem. If she wants us to circulate her document, I will circulate it to members of the committee.
Mr. Salafia
May I intervene? Separating transport from archaeology is very difficult because the National Monuments Act 2004, the nub of what we are discussing, and the directions under it——
I have nothing to do with the National Monuments Act. I am Chairman of the committee to take the——
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
I am going to keep talking.
As a member of the committee, I fail to see how the Chairman can totally separate the archaeological environment from transport. They are inseparable.
What I am trying to explain is that we have——
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
These reports were commissioned by the National Roads Authority, for goodness sake. Of course, they have got to do with transport. The National Roads Authority paid for them.
If Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin does not want to obey the Chair, I will have to take the ultimate sanction.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
The Chair is being extremely unfair.
The Chair is being very patient.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
The Chair is being extremely unfair and I appeal to other members of the committee to support me.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin should know that she does not have the right to challenge the Chair. She is not somebody who does not know how committees such as this proceed.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
Of course, I do. That is why I am specifically relating my report to——
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin has three minutes grace left to finish her submission.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
This is undemocratic.
Does the Chair's ruling mean we cannot mention the words "environment" and "archaeology" in a presentation before this committee?
We can. They were mentioned in the other submissions made before the committee last week.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
Why may I not mention them? I really do not understand this.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin should continue. She has three minutes left.
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
I am absolutely baffled.
I ask the Chair to give some latitude and allow Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin to finish her presentation, bearing in mind that the principle grounds for opposition to the proposal are archaeological. It is asking the impossible of people opposed to the proposal not to refer to archaeology.
Can we, please, try and finish?
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
The NRA commissioned report in 2000 from Margaret Gowan archaeological company stated the monuments around Tara could not be viewed in isolation or as individual sites but must be seen in the context of the intact archaeological landscape which should not under any circumstances be disturbed in terms of visual or direct impact on the monuments. This would have severe implications from an archaeological point of view.
My academic colleagues have been faulted for coming late to this debate. They trusted the process of the oral hearing. Nobody believed this route would be chosen and that the expert evidence of Dr. Conor Newman of the Discovery Programme would be ignored. Archaeology was ignored, in addition, literary and historical evidence were never considered. Thousands of academic experts have expressed their horror at the proposed route. Tara does not belong to the archaeologists. It also belongs to the wider community of early Irish and Celtic studies. It is the centre of early Irish literature, history, spirituality and anthropology, even if there was no archaeology.
The debate about Tara should be seen as an opportunity to consider what damage unbridled development will cause to the future of our nation. The eye of history is upon us. We only hold the land in trust for future generations. This committee has an opportunity to admit that a transport mistake has been made but that it can be rectified. Move the M3, save Tara and prevent the undoubted mayhem that will follow the wrong decision.
Do the delegates have submissions they want to make to members of the committee?
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
My statement is separate from the supporting documents.
I thank members for facilitating this late submission. We have agreed that we will take a late submission next Tuesday from the Meath Citizens for the M3 Group. That will be the last submission we will take. I hope we will be in a position to prepare a report at that stage. The committee will deal with the open skies issue and the Meath M3 group at next Tuesday's meeting. Is that agreed? Agreed.
The joint committee adjourned at 3 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 15 February 2005.