Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an Teachta McGrath as a chuid ama a roinnt liom chomh maith. The media coverage of this legislation has focused on the possibility that it may face legal challenge. I am interested to hear what advice the Minister has taken in that regard. This morning I received a long e-mail which I do not propose to read into the record of the House because it would take up more than my allotted time. It was written by a barrister who stated that the Minister's new proposals will effectively remove the ability of the Dáil, the courts, the National Museum and the general public to regulate, prevent or even know about the wholesale destruction of Ireland's internationally significant and still undiscovered heritage, ostensibly because the National Roads Authority cannot detect the presence of archaeological remains before it designs road routes. The proposal will remove and undermine legislative protections enacted and improved upon since the foundation of the State. The effect will be to reduce Ireland's heritage protection legislation from relatively high to low standards overnight.

I presume that position could be open to challenge from the Minister's legal advice. However, it seems there could be a mother of all legal challenges being considered. I hope the Minister would avoid going down the route of confrontation as he stated there is considerable public funding in question. It would be very unwise to exacerbate an already confrontational situation further. It would be preferable to resolve rather than exacerbate the confrontation. In that regard, there needs to be a root and branch examination of why discoveries are being made and challenges undertaken very late in the day. This leads to additional delays and expense which should be avoided.

The PAC investigated suspicions of overspending linked to allegations of incompetence with respect to the National Roads Authority. There is no doubt the NRA has a dominant position. It is not accountable to Members of this House and questions asked are referred to the NRA rather than answered by the line Minister. The NRA is also in a position to retain the best engineers and has the organisational structure to give priority to its own objectives and sideline others. Its activities should be more closely investigated. Government needs to take a broader view in terms of a national transport authority rather than leaving the NRA in an advantageous position with respect to other transport options and the wider public interest.

The Minister stated there is an effort to discover the location of important archaeological sites in advance but I do not believe technology has been closely examined as a means of finding buried structures. I take the point made by the Minister that a certain amount can be done but not everything. Small finds might not show up in a satellite-based system, for example, but advances have been made in that direction.

The requirement regarding discovery of structures should be met long before construction begins. I remain to be convinced that this is the case. The current approach often appears to be to proceed with construction, hope for the best and if structures are found, the project will have progressed sufficiently to force the issue. This is a recipe for conflict.

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