Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

No self-respecting country should decide to neglect or ignore, perhaps for commercial, cost-benefit or utilitarian considerations, the roots of its civilisation. Does that perhaps lead to situations which have caused grief for people who are not anti-road or anti-progress in any sense? In the case of the M3, souterrains were destroyed. Why were they not uncovered during preliminary surveys? I do not want to be too negative about it but there have been a number of incidents which we have discussed over recent years where we have been a bit careless of our culture and heritage. Often we are able to correct the situation, as in the case of the Moore Street house. If we do not have a body of experts, even if they must be subsidised, who have a knowledge of what are for most of us very abstruse things but which are, nonetheless, important in terms of value, culture and civilisation, we will not maintain the type of balanced identity we all want.