Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I enjoyed listening to Deputy Haughey's literary references, particularly his comment about a book by John McCarthy which I may be spurred to read. He writes about his return to his ancestral roots in County Kerry to try to discover himself following his ordeal. What struck me in particular in what Deputy Haughey said was that it was the journey towards these monuments which Mr. McCarthy was investigating as part of his own recovery that made up a significant part of the attraction of his visit to Kerry. I imagine him searching out on small quiet country roads, on foot in many cases. I imagine him seeing small things and seeing nature up close as he searches for an ogham stone or whatever.

Deputy Haughey's contribution made me think of another literary work, by Milan Kundera, the title of which I cannot recall. In the book the author expresses the idea that the journey is very important. He writes that we must be careful not to develop a society and a culture where the journey is ignored. One of my criticisms about the road building programme is the attention paid to getting Deputy Haughey's constituents down to Rosslare, even though it is a very admirable and worthwhile ambition. If we create a transport system in such a way that the actual journey is a dead experience on a motorway, we will have lost something. We must be careful the road building programme does not destroy our sense of ourselves.

I do not believe our programme is economically sound and it is environmentally disastrous. Our everyday journeys in life should not be grey, anodyne experiences, looking at a wall of concrete and competing with each other in cars as we rush along these new motorways which are all the same wherever they are. We are changing our cultured country dramatically. As well as being economic beings, we are beings who require spiritual and cultural sustenance and a sense of place, history and culture. In a way, that is the theme of this debate. We are almost down to a cost-benefit analysis between development for infrastructural purposes and this piece of archaeology or history or this monument in Carrickmines which could help us to develop a sense of ourselves and a sense of place.

Deputy Haughey said the argument was about whether the motorway should proceed. I do not believe that is the question. No one on this side of the argument is saying the motorway should not proceed, given the extent to which it has been built and it now being a matter of connecting up the other existing roads, and given the hardship being imposed on some of my constituents and others around Dublin. The argument is about the detail of that motorway plan when it comes to the national monument at Carrickmines Castle. The argument will go beyond that to the development of the planned M3 motorway between Clonee and Tara.

This Bill also has implications not just for the motorway at Carrickmines but also for all future developments in the State and especially for motorway development. Given the level of motorway and road building in the State, this Bill will have significant implications for our sense of ourselves, our sense of place and how we protect our archaeological and historic remains. This is a very important Bill and it is a misguided response to a problem which should have been solved in a different manner had this Minister and his Government shown any sense of humility or flexibility.

I have visited the Carrickmines site and studied the plans in detail. It seems clear to me and is clearly stated by all the campaigners that an alternative solution existed which would have protected most of the castle site, allowed the motorway to continue and not have significant cost implications. It proposed the downscaling or removal of the intersection or roundabout which comes off the motorway at this site. It is the roundabout rather than the motorway which will cover most of the castle area. Why was this alteration not considered? Rather than losing in court seven times, as he did due to his stubborn insistence on proceeding with the section of the road in question as planned, why did the Minister not amend the route, particularly as regards the roundabout?

A developer recently sought an alteration to an intersection close to the proposed Cherrywood town centre, which was similar to the Carrickmines intersection. He wanted to widen the road by adding further lanes even though the roads in the area are wide enough to cater for a new city, not to mention a planned new town centre. He encountered no difficulties and the new road plan was immediately processed with an oral hearing held by An Bord Pleanála and funding provided. The change, which was similar in scale to that required in the Carrickmines case, was given full Government support and effected immediately. For some strange reason, however, on the question of amending a roundabout and intersection of the motorway feeding the lands which have been the subject of so much controversy in the never ending planning tribunals, the Government refused to countenance change. Its decision is disgraceful and is the reason we are dealing with this reactionary Bill which runs completely counter to the original 1930 Bill. The latter was introduced to protect national monuments, whereas this Bill has been drawn up to allow the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the National Roads Authority ignore the original Act and effectively remove national monuments if they are located on the route of new road building.

To return to the Carrickmines site, while I am in favour of finishing the motorway at this stage, questions need to be asked about the type of planning taking place in our transport system, particularly in the area in which the Government is insisting the roundabout in question be located. Speaking on the necessity of the road and roundabout proceeding, the director of traffic in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council stated the M50 was an urban motorway, serving an urban area. Anyone who knows the land and area in question will know it is not an urban but a country area with small and narrow roads, such as the Glenamuck Road. The area should be protected as the last remaining green belt between ever sprawling Dublin and County Wicklow.

The Minister who is asking us through this legislation to give him massive powers and to trust him to protect our national monuments has shown recently that he does not regard this area of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown as a necessary green belt and is not concerned about Dublin sprawling into it. When the development plan democratically agreed by councillors was presented, for the first time ever, the Minister intervened stating that insufficient land had been zoned. He made no such interventions in Meath, Kildare, Wicklow and other surrounding counties where massive over-zoning occurred. In those cases, he had the right to intervene — almost a necessity in terms of the strategic planning guidelines — in order to try to stop mad rezoning of this nature from taking place. In the case of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council he did precisely the opposite on the grounds that it had not zoned sufficient land. As a result, massive further rezoning and development has occurred around the junction which, when built, will flatten Carrickmines Castle.

People now know the area in question. If one heads to Dublin from Enniskerry, which has also expanded dramatically, the only area left on which no building has taken place will be the small area around the Scalp on which it is impossible to build housing due to its cliff face. The rest of Dublin will merge into County Wicklow. The same process is taking place in the Shankill area closer to the coast. We have one large urban continuous sprawl which will be served by the roundabout it is being insisted must be built.

The roundabout will also serve the very lands which were so controversially rezoned. The route of the M50 motorway was not decided on the basis of transport needs or environmental considerations but on the basis of rezoning. It was chosen to favour the development of certain lands and the fact that a national monument was in the way did not enter the equation.

We still have a purely development-oriented Government. Someone quipped recently that the Government's definition of sustainable development is "sustained development" and that no consideration is given to the need to protect our culture and environment. This approach will eventually come back to haunt us by biting the economic hand that feeds us. A society that does not take into account its sense of culture and place loses its sense of values and, ultimately, becomes a poor place for economic growth and development.

I will make a further point regarding the area through which the M50 extension will run and in that respect Deputy Haughey is correct that all politics are local. Is the light rail line proposed for the area in which we insist on building a massive junction and road network being built? Despite the fact that it could help create and serve a real urban area, the answer is "No". Communities could be developed close to the Luas line, thus avoiding traffic jams. That is the obvious solution to developing urban centres and providing housing in the area but the Government has failed to provide money for it, although it provides money for motorways and changes legislation at the last minute to provide for massive roundabouts. Would it do the same to get a light rail extended which would make a massive difference to the daily lives of those who live in housing estates such as The Gallops, Ballyogan and Stepaside, from which children travel by car to 30 different schools every morning? The area has no public transport except a No. 44 bus which arrives once every hour.

All that is proposed are roundabouts and motorways which ultimately never work. No matter how many roads or spaghetti flyovers we build, the result will be more cars arriving on another part of the Dublin road network which cannot support them. Mathematically, this approach to traffic and transport management does not work and the sooner we learn that from almost every other developed country in the world, the better. We need to change tack by developing public transport instead.

During his row with the Labour Party spokesperson, Deputy Gilmore, the Minister happily stated that no sites of major archaeological significance had been found on the proposed Clonee to Kells bypass on the M3. I am informed that the NRA had originally stated in regard to this site that it expected two archaeological sites to be found. The route of the road was decided before any real analysis was done, which is a lesson we have not learned from a series of cases from Wood Quay through to Carrickmines. Before selecting any site, we should find out what archaeological sites are on the route. On this occasion, having chosen the route, we have found out from the NRA's own internal report that some 28 sites of archaeological interest are located along it. This is another example of how the NRA bases route selection on transport considerations only.

As Deputy Gilmore stated, the environmental impact statement system is phoney. In most cases the people who pay the piper receive from the consultants the EIS they want. They are written around the needs and aspirations of the developer, in this case the NRA. The same problem will occur on the Clonee section of the M3. At the last minute, sites of major importance will be found forcing a decision on whether to demolish them.

I will briefly address the intent of the Bill. Section 5, the real body of the legislation, replaces section 14 of the original 1930 Act. It was interesting and slightly ironic to note that the footnote in the Bill refers to "injury to national monuments", whereas the footnote in the original Bill refers to "prohibition of injury to national monuments". The footnotes say it all because the legislation will allow the Minister and, in particular, the NRA to injure national monuments where they see fit. The free-ranging conditions given to the NRA and the absence in most circumstances of a requirement to seek consent with regard to the action it proposes to take on national monuments, are remarkable. At a time when Ministers are being divested of regulatory functions and powers in other areas of Government which are then given to independent regulators, the Minister is pulling power back to himself in this Bill. Those powers will be particularly controversial in many cases. That is not appropriate.

Under the new section 14A(4)(a), the National Roads Authority is not required to seek sanction for altering or demolishing a national monument and the new section 14A(4)(d) sets out the Minister's discretion to issue directions to the NRA. If that body has not done what is required, the Minister can issue directions to have a variety of things done to a national monument. The monument can be preserved, renovated, excavated or recorded, but the most remarkable wording is in the new section 14A(4)(d)(v), which states that a national monument can be demolished, removed, disfigured, defaced, altered, injured or interfered with. That remarkable subsection gives the Minister the power to do whatever he wants to any national monument should it get in the way of the cost-benefit analysis he has carried out.

The new section 14A sets out what the Minister must take regard of and the extent of his discretionary powers. Section 14A(6)(b) provides that he or she must take into account the cost implications, if any, occurring as a result of a direction being issued, or not as the case may be. That sort of clause would not have been introduced according to the very essence of the initial National Monuments Bill. Our country has changed for the worse. The 1930 Bill provided for alterations and changes to be made to monuments but carrying out changes purely on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis tells a sad tale about modern Ireland.

The Minister said that the Supreme Court decision on his issuing of a notice that the Carrickmines site could be changed was stopped on a technical hitch. A ministerial order amending original legislation is some technical hitch. I am told that with the six submissions the Minister received before making that order, he was informed clearly by those involved, the "Carrickminders", that he would not be able to act because of this so-called technical hitch. He still went ahead and was defeated in the Supreme Court. Rather than taking a series of court cases and getting into a legal quagmire, why did the Minister not work out what was or was not possible with those with whom he was negotiating? If he had listened, rather than acting on his own instincts, he might have saved a great deal of time and money in this case.

The 1996 order was set out on a good principle. Under the original order we were looking to learn some of the lessons from Wood Quay, as we were with the 1987 amendment to the original Act, which sought a full list of national monuments and sites. We failed to do that. We also failed to learn the lessons from Wood Quay and are now failing to learn the lessons of the Carrickmines case. We are proceeding with massive developments elsewhere which will have implications for the kind of country we have.

I praise those who have received huge criticism and opprobrium for their actions, like Mark Clinton, the archaeologist on the Carrickmines site. It was very difficult for him because he was employed there as an archaeologist but, courageously, he said that greed and ineptitude characterised the controversy over the castle and the building of the motorway and that it had been a disaster from day one. That was a remarkable comment from the archaeologist involved.

Likewise, while those taking legal cases may drive the NRA and others mad — those living in the area must be wondering why they have been waiting for so long — they are characterised not by a desire to act for the fun or power, as some speakers have said. They are motivated by a concern for our heritage, culture and environment. They have put themselves in a very difficult position and some of them face huge financial losses. If we had proper political discourse on environmental issues and a Government which did not ignore environmental issues, there would not be such a need for legal recourse. Issues could be sorted out at a political level if we had a Government which cared about the environment and which was willing to listen.

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