Protesters to try to halt roundabout at castle via courts again

Anti-roads protesters will not take "direct action" to preserve the ruins of Carrickmines Castle until all legal channels are exhausted, they said yesterday.

As work to remove some of the remains of the medieval castle in south Dublin resumed yesterday morning, Mr Vincent Salafia, spokesman for the Carrickminders group, said it was seeking a new court hearing to halt the scheme a second time.

The group's grounds for a renewed judicial review are:

It argues that the Minister for the Environment had no right to permit the destruction of the remains for two reasons.

The first was that he was both guardian of the remains and proponent of the proposed motorway.

The second was that the enlarged motorway roundabout approved by the Minister is some 50 per cent larger than that approved by An Bord Pleanála and so would require a new planning application.

It argues that if the Minister did have the right to permit the works, it was only having determined that the ruins represent a threat to health and safety, which the group says is not the case.

The third ground for a renewed judicial review is that the complaint process to the EU is not complete and the work may be destroying evidence required for this case.

Archaeologists who resumed work on the castle's defensive fosse on Tuesday returned yesterday to continue numbering and moving stones from the walled fosse.

At the same time the Carrickminders group was assessing its chances of a new legal challenge to the motorway scheme.

Mr Salafia, however, ruled out any "direct action" by protesters "at least until all the legal avenues have been exhausted".

He said much of the focus of the anti-roads group had shifted in recent months to the proposed M3 motorway which passes close to the Hill of Tara in Co Meath.

Mr Michael Egan, corporate affairs spokesman for the National Roads Authority, said that without a new court challenge, the road and its Carrickmines interchange would be open by September 2005.

The authority had previously considered opening the motorway and not the Carrickmines section, effectively leaving a gap in the M50 C-ring around Dublin.

It had also considered in recent weeks the possibility of isolating the main section of the motorway, and awaiting court decisions on the question of the interchange.

The Green Party TD for the area Mr Ciarán Cuffe said he was surprised the nearby Lehaunstown interchange could be rebuilt at the request of a developer while the Carrickmines interchange could not be changed to preserve a medieval castle.

"Eighteen months ago the Green Party wrote to the developers asking that they change the route of the motorway at Carrickmines. They didn't even bother to reply."