The National Museum of Ireland has received a firm assurance that further work involving soil disturbance along the route of the controversial M3 motorway in Co Meath will be carried out under archaeological supervision.
This follows allegations from the Save Tara campaign that part of Rath Lugh, an Iron Age promontory fort associated with the Hill of Tara, had been excavated by a mechanical digger during preparatory works for the €660 million motorway project.
The National Museum sent two archaeologists to the area after receiving photographs of damage done by tree felling and other work near Rath Lugh and Lismullen, both located on the east side of the Gabhra Valley, opposite Tara.
An earlier examination of the contentious sites had been carried out by Heather King, an archaeologist in the National Monuments Service of the Department of the Environment. She had found no damage to any monument in the area.
However, a National Museum source said it was "obvious that there was extensive soil disturbance which hadn't been monitored". If this had occurred at Rath Lugh, which is a designated national monument, it would be a "massive problem".
Dr Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, of Save Tara, said an audit of those present when one worker employed by the contractors was injured by a falling tree at Lismullen two weeks ago showed that there was no archaeologist on the list.
"This proves the point - that they were in Lismullen where the Minister's directions state specifically that there should be an archaeologist present, and there was none," she said, referring to the directions issued by Minister for the Environment Dick Roche in May 2005.
Raghnall Ó Floinn, head of collections at the National Museum, told The Irish Times the two archaeologists sent to inspect the area on Wednesday found evidence of excavation at the base of an esker, some 20 metres away from Rath Lugh. "There was a certain amount of soil disturbance inside the [ area of the] road take, but this was not archaeological," he said. "We have now received an undertaking that any further work along the route will be archaeologically monitored."
