Problems with the route of Dublin's South Eastern Motorway are set to persist with a court challenge and an EU investigation. Tim O'Brien reports
Conservationists concerned with the preservation of the archaeological remains of Carrickmines Castle are planning court action to halt the construction of the South Eastern Motorway in south Co Dublin.
The decision to mount a legal challenge to the motorway follows the announcement on Wednesday by Labour MEP Mr Prionsias de Rossa that he had lodged a complaint about its construction with the European Parliament Petitions Committee, of which he is vice-chairman.
The conservationists and Mr de Rossa are concerned that the selected route of the motorway failed to protect the castle archaeology from becoming the chosen site of the Carrickmines interchange, though a 1983 report commissioned by Dublin County Council from An Foras Forbartha, the then National Institute for Physical Planning and Construction Research, had warned of "any interference with the ancient sites" at Carrickmines.
The conservationists, styling themselves the "Carrickminders", have also expressed disappointment that the selected route south of Carrickmines bisected land belonging to Jackson Way Properties Ltd, a company which has claimed up to €118 million in damages from the council.
The Carrickminders said they are further angered because the process which formally incorporated the selected motorway route, the adoption of the 1998 Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Development Plan, also rezoned additional land belonging to Jackson Way for an industrial estate, enriching the company precisely because of the proximity of the motorway.
The Carrickminders' spokesman, Mr Ruadhan MacEoin, told The Irish Times this week the group would be seeking an injunction to halt the motorway until the EU inquiry sought by Mr de Rossa had concluded.
"Here we have a line of a motorway that leaves the taxpayer exposed to claims of more than €100 million and it can't protect the heritage of Carrickmines. What were they thinking when they put this in the County Development Plan?"
However, assertions that more could have been done to protect the archaeological site, or that the motorway was changed significantly from the original Dublin County Council plan, have been rejected by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and the National Roads Authority (NRA).
The senior engineer with the council, Mr John McDaid, told The Irish Times: "There was always going to be an interchange at Carrickmines, although it would not have been planned in detail on the early Dublin County Council maps." The final version had moved just 30 metres from initial drawings.
He said the An Foras Forbartha report of 1983 had been considered in drawing up the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and was referred to at a number of points in an ancillary report to the EIS. The report was commissioned on the prospects for realigning the Ballyogan Road, and though it identified the archaeological remains it did not pinpoint the castle building, the location of which is still unknown.
It dealt with moving a much smaller road than the motorway, which was "a completely different kind of animal". The options for the interchange were "nebulous" in relation to the Carrickmines site and artefacts had been properly preserved and catalogued, he explained.
Mr McDaid said the route selection of the Carrickmines to Cherrywood section of the motorway had been made with regard to other possible significant archaeological remains in and around Laughanstown House.The fact that the route bisected the Jackson Way land was "a separate conspiracy theory".
However, expressing his disappointment that more was not done to preserve the Carrickmines archaeological sites, Mr de Rossa said: "It now transpires that, in official circles at least, the extent and importance of this site was well known and was taken into account in previous planning of road alignments." Records of the council debates concerning the County Development Plan going back to late 1997 indicate that by far the most contentious rezoning concerned land in the area of Glenamuck and Carrickmines Great, both close to the junction with the proposed South Eastern Motorway. Rezoning went against the advice of the then county manager, who claimed much of the land would not be accessible until the South Eastern Motorway was built. The proposals, which also provided for the building of some 700 houses, split the council, with the combined weight of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael defeating the PDs, the Greens, Labour and Democratic Left by 15 votes to 12.
The decision, and the constant ringing of councillors' mobile phones throughout meetings, led the then Democratic Left councillor Mr Denis O'Callaghan to comment: "The only difference between this and the rezonings at Dublin County Council in the 1980s is that we do not have landowners laughing in the public gallery - however, given the advent of modern technology, I am sure they are being kept fully informed."