Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 9 July 2008
73 Deputy Martin Ferris asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his views on a claim (details supplied) that the report of an archaeologist regarding the M3 motorway at Tara, County Meath was falsified; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26938/08]
View answer78 Deputy Joanna Tuffy asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he has taken steps to establish or investigate if the necessary archeological information was available when the decision to approve the M3 Motorway route was made; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27565/08]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 73 and 78 together.
The decision to approve the M3 Motorway route was made by An Bord Pleanála in August 2003. Under the relevant provisions of the National Monuments Acts, the statutory functions of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in the matter relate only to the regulation of archaeological works associated with an approved road scheme, such as the M3.
According to my Department's records, the archaeologist who wrote the report referred to in recent media allegations was granted six licences under the National Monuments Acts in 2004 to carry out test trenching on the approved route of the M3 motorway in accordance with the requirements of the EIS for the scheme. The licences related to archaeological investigative works on the Navan to Kells (including the Kells Bypass) section of the motorway, but not on the Dunshaughlin to Navan section, which passes through the Gabhra valley, between Tara and Skryne.
The test excavations were carried out following the standard methodolgy used in such cases i.e. a 2 metre wide trench was excavated along the centre line of the approved route with offset trenches at 20 m intervals extending to the edge of the land-take for the road. Reports on the results of the test excavations carried out were submitted to the Department and Ministerial directions were issued for the full archaeological excavation and recording of all the archaeological sites identified in the test excavations. These excavations were carried out under the direction of qualified and experienced archaeologists and work on all the sites has been completed. Archaeologists from my Department carried out inspections of the foregoing works on a number of occasions. The reports of the test excavations submitted to my Department were comprehensive and were considered accurately and fully to reflect what was found during these excavations.
In later High Court proceedings, Vincent Salafia v. the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Meath County Council, Ireland and the Attorney General, the High Court considered, inter alia, the archaeological trench testing that took place on the route of the M3 between March and December 2004 and the reports on that testing. In its judgement in the case, the Court found that the Minister at the time considered carefully and in detail the material supplied to him before issuing the foregoing directions and having sought the advice of the Director of the National Museum, as required under the National Monuments Acts, he was entitled to issue the directions in the circumstances in which they were issued.
A Code of Practice on archaeological heritage protection between my Department and the NRA has been in place for a number of years. The Code commits the NRA to a number of principles including the appointment of its own staff of project archaeologists to oversee archaeological works associated with road developments. The Code also provides that where any dispute arises between the relevant project archaeologist and a consultant archaeologist carrying out archaeological works, the matter will be referred to the Department for a decision. There is no record of any dispute between the NRA's project archaeologists for the M3 motorway and any of the consultant archaeologists working on the scheme ever having been referred to the Department.
