Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Some of the worst traffic conditions in this country are to be found on the N3. Some 15,000 cars crawl through the town of Kells every day. Traffic backs up at Navan and Dunshaughlin. The road is in poor condition and it has one of the worst road accident rates in the country. Many of those who are stuck day in and day out in these frustrating traffic queues are young workers who have been forced by the high house prices in Dublin to commute from towns and commuter estates in County Meath.

There is no disputing the need for improved road and transport links along this corridor or the necessity to urgently resolve the traffic congestion which is the daily reality on the existing N2. In 1998, the national road needs study concluded that a dual carriageway standard road was needed between Kells and Clonee. In 1999 Meath County Council approved plans for a bypass of Dunshaughlin and planned to also bypass Kells and Navan. These plans, however, were effectively set aside by the National Roads Authority, which at the behest of the Government advanced a proposal for a 62.8 km motorway to run from Clonee to north of Kells, which would be built as a PPP and which would be tolled.

The NRA and Meath County Council commissioned consultants to produce a route selection report and to conduct a public consultation process. Eventually the NRA selected a route for the section of motorway between Dunshaughlin and Navan, which was not the preferred option of the vast majority of those who made submissions and which was not recommended under any of the environmental headings of archaeology, built heritage, water quality, landscape, air quality or noise level.

This route, which is the subject of the Labour Party motion, was subsequently approved by An Bord Pleanála in October 2003 following an oral hearing. A tendering process is now under way to select a single contractor to build the motorway. It is expected that construction will begin in 2006 or perhaps 2007 and that the motorway will be completed by 2010, provided there are no legal challenges or other delays.

While many concerns have been expressed about the proposed motorway, including the plans to toll it, the main worry now relates to the 14 km section between Dunshaughlin and Navan. This section of the M3 will cut through the Tara-Skryne Valley, one of the richest archaeological landscapes in Europe, and will include a major 26 acre floodlit interchange at Blundelstown, just over one kilometre from the northern edge of the Hill of Tara. It will also cut through the historic complexes of Lismullin and Dowdstown and will take away a major part of the nature reserve at Dalgan Park.

The unique archaeological, cultural and natural landscape of Tara and its environs, which has existed virtually untouched for almost 6,000 years, will be destroyed forever if the M3 is built on the route that has been approved. The NRA argues — no doubt this will be repeated in the course of this debate — first, that the Hill of Tara is not being touched by the motorway and, second, that every effort has been made and will be made to mitigate the archaeological impact of the motorway construction.

The leading authority on Tara is Dr. Conor Newman of NUIG. He has worked on Tara since 1982. He was director of the State's Tara survey organised under the discovery programme, which began in 1992. He has written extensively about Tara with his academic colleagues Dr. Joseph Fenwick of NUIG and Dr. Edel Bhreathnach of UCD. In his submission to An Bord Pleanála, Dr. Newman described the Hill of Tara as one of the most important archaeological complexes in the world. He pointed out that the Hill of Tara had to be considered in a wider geographical context. In his submission he stated:

The Hill of Tara represents the ritual and political core of a far larger territory or landscape. It cannot be regarded, or treated, in isolation from this broader landscape because this would be to divorce it from its cultural and geographical context. For the most part, people did not live on Tara; they buried their dead there and built temples. They lived instead in the shadow of their sacred mountain. This is why archaeologists and historians are concerned about any developments within the vicinity of Tara. Moreover all of our researches point to the valley between Tara and Skreen as an area of paramount importance throughout the history of Tara and this is spectacularly corroborated in the geophysical survey carried out as part of the EIA.

This valley between Tara and Skyrne is precisely where the NRA plans to build the M3 and it has been described by Dr. Newman as "chock-a-block with archaeological monuments and interesting and complex ones at that". It is estimated that there is an archaeological site along the route of the proposed motorway on average every 370 metres. Initially, the NRA sought to play down the number of such sites. In letters to newspapers and to other interested parties in February this year, the NRA claimed that there were only two recorded sites along the entire 60 km of the proposed motorway and that the geophysical survey had found a further three, that is, five in all.

By May of this year the NRA's interim report on test trenching along the route acknowledged that "to date approximately 28 archaeological sites have been confirmed or identified by the archaeological testing". On 1 June at the Joint Committee on the Environment and Local Government, the NRA mentioned 15 possible archaeological sites on which testing was ongoing and 23 other areas of archaeological potential, all remaining areas currently being tested.

On 21 September at a meeting between the NRA, Meath County Council and the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society, it was announced that the M3 between Dunshaughlin and Navan would impact on a minimum of 38 site monuments and complexes. In September also the NRA published 21 archaeological reports outlining the results of test trenching between Dunshaughlin and Dowdstown which identified a minimum of 38 sites, monuments and archaeological complexes, some of them between one hectare and two hectares in area, and representing an archaeological site on average every 370 metres along the route of the planned motorway between Dunshaughlin and Navan. This number and scale of sites and monuments are in line with the predictions of Doctors Newman, Fenwick and Bhreathnach and are a far cry from the claims made by the NRA prior to the approval of the motorway scheme.

It is remarkable that the NRA played down the possible archaeological impact of the M3 because at the An Bord Pleanála hearing Dr. Newman stated:

From the very outset this route was identified as the least desirable from the archaeological point of view; the attrition rate on the archaeological heritage will be far greater here than for any other of the proposed routes. This is not just my conclusion, it is the conclusion arrived at by the archaeological consultants involved in the route selection process. What is surprising, therefore, is that in spite of this, the National Roads Authority has selected this as the preferred route.

Dr. Newman, in his submission to An Bord Pleanála in September 2003, complained that the geophysical images produced by the archaeological consultants to the environmental impact statement were not included in the environmental impact statement. He wrote:

Instead what we got were interpretive drawings that we had to take at face value. This is completely abnormal practice. I have never encountered a situation before where the geophysical images were not provided alongside interpretive drawings. It is an industry standard.

Dr. Newman concluded that this had completely compromised the EIS, on which the motorway scheme was based. He said: "If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might have concluded that the geophysical evidence was part-buried because it proved so spectacularly the enormity of the archaeological dimension to this section of the motorway." No conspiracy theory is required. The facts speak for themselves. Only nine months ago, the NRA claimed there were only five archaeological sites on the route. Now even they admit there are 38. They would not listen to Dr. Newman and other experts. They buried the geophysical evidence which have confirmed Dr. Newman's warning that the Tara-Skryne Valley is chock-a-block with sites and monuments. For whatever reason, they selected the wrong route, and they now claim to be unable to change that. Their apologists are now attempting to blackmail the people and commuters of Meath that to be freed from the insufferable traffic jams, they must sacrifice the Celtic heritage of our country and continent.

Let us consider realistically what will happen if the NRA is allowed to persist with its planned route for the M3. For 38 sites that we know of so far, the NRA will have to request the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to exercise his new powers under the National Monuments Act 2004. On most of those 38 occasions, the Minister will be subjected to considerable pressure from international and expert opinion on the importance of Tara. The Minister will probably order an initial archaeological dig. After that he will still have to decide whether to halt the construction of the motorway or perhaps order the destruction or removal of the archaeological find concerned.

If he accedes to the NRA request he exposes the country to international ridicule. If he denies the request the motorway cannot be completed or will have to be rerouted. If he takes time to make up his mind, at the very least, he will delay completion of the road, probably adding hugely to the cost since, unlike the Carrickmines case, the option of sending the contractors further up the road will not be available as there is an archaeological site, that we know of, every 370 metres.

Inevitably there will be legal challenges and some will be taken in international courts. The long-suffering Meath commuter may yet become knowledgeable about the Valetta Convention as he or she suffers years of added traffic congestion and chaos.

This is an occasion when Government should face the inevitable. The M3 cannot be built through the Tara-Skryne Valley, as is planned. Any attempt to do so would destroy 6,000 years of Celtic heritage, prolong the traffic problems it was meant to solve and add hugely to the already estimated €680 million it is planned to cost the taxpayer.

The Labour Party proposes that the traffic problems of County Meath should wait no longer. The bypass of Dunshaughlin, Navan and Kells should proceed without further delay. The portions of this motorway north of Navan and south of Dunshaughlin can be proceeded with. The section between Dunshaughlin and Navan will have to be thought out again. There are options. There are the routes which were already considered. There is the suggestion by the Ballinter Residents Association that there should be improved road links to the M2 which will be only 12 km from the planned M3. There is the proposal to reopen the Navan to Dublin rail line, which would considerably reduce the demand for car traffic.

There is a window of opportunity for the Government to dig the NRA out of this hole. That window, however, will close some time in the new year when a tender is accepted and contracts are entered into.

I, therefore, ask the Government to make the decision called for in the Labour Party motion. No other authority is in a position to make that decision. The NRA cannot withdraw from the motorway scheme which has now been approved, An Bord Pleanála will not unilaterally revisit it and Meath County Council is not in the driving seat. This is a decision that must be made by the Government. Doing so will protect our heritage, save the country from ridicule, save the taxpayers money and save the N2 commuter from an even longer wait for traffic relief.

I was interested in the Government amendment for three reasons. First, it is tabled by the Minister for Transport, not by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, to whom the motion was addressed and on whose shoulders responsibility rests for making the immediate decisions relating to the permissions sought by the NRA. Second, considering the motion refers to the M3 and Tara, the amendment makes no mention of the M3. Third, the amendment makes no mention of Tara.

I take some comfort from that. The amendment does not address the centrality of the motion, the necessity to address the question of the section of motorway between Dunshaughlin and Navan which poses a threat to the Tara national monument. When the Minister for Transport replies to the debate, I hope he will tell us not what is in the amendment about the fine things the Government is doing to advance the roads programme and the national spatial strategy, but what it intends to do about the section of the M3 which is to run through the national monument of Tara.

See this speech in context