This week shows that the Government sees heritage protection a s far less important than development, argues Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
The environment is "a key priority during the Irish presidency of the EU over the next six months," according to Pat the Cope Gallagher, Minister of State at the Department of the Environment. At least, that's what he said in Brussels on Wednesday at a European Parliament public hearing on waste prevention and recycling.
It didn't look like that at home. On the same day, The Irish Times revealed that his boss, Martin Cullen, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Governnment, had personally vetoed the sending of nine planning appeals to An Bord Pleanála, out of the 28 which had been recommended by heritage officials exercising their professional judgment.
On Tuesday, Cullen celebrated a High Court judgment paving the way for the remains of Carrickmines Castle to be partially destroyed by a motorway interchange on the last leg of Dublin's M50. Yet an independent report for the European Commission found that no serious effort had been made to save it.
On Wednesday, it was reported that An Taisce, one of the few genuinely independent bodies in the environmental arena, was facing a financial crisis and had had to lay off two of its staff. There was also doubt about whether a modest funding package from the Department of the Environment would be renewed.
Earthwatch, the Irish associate of Friends of the Earth International, was reported to have ceased trading, after running up debts of €26,000. Efforts are being made by Friends of the Earth in Belfast to re-float it so that the whole island would have "a strong environmental voice with an international perspective".
Never have such voices been so needed. Shirley Clerkin, An Taisce's natural environment officer until the end of this month, says there is now a "tidal wave" against environmental protection - and it's hitting Ireland at a time when those few trying to hold it back are under attack from all sides.
Cullen may even be moving to strip An Taisce of its status as a "prescribed body" under the Planning Act. What this would mean is that local authorities would no longer be required to refer environmentally sensitive planning applications to the trust - and it would have to pay full fees for appeals to An Bord Pleanála.
County councillors who want to see the countryside covered in houses are incensed by An Taisce's track record of successful appeals, even though the number of cases involved represents a tiny fraction of all planning applications. The very idea that there would be any kind of independent review is simply unacceptable to them.
It was to this gallery that Cullen was playing earlier this month when he flagged his intention to introduce an even more liberal regime for new housing in rural areas, as advocated by the Taoiseach himself last autumn. Even as it is, the remaining restrictions are already being ditched on a county-by-county basis.
But then, it seems that Bertie Ahern believes that the Kildare bypass was held up for years by a snail - when, in fact, the real reason was that the decision to proceed with it in 1997 ignored official advice that it could drain the Curragh aquifer, dry out the Japanese Gardens and damage Pollardstown Fen, a habitat of international importance.
Far from seeking to protect such areas, as required by EU legislation, the Department of the Environment, as Ireland's "competent authority", is involved in secret negotiations with farming organisations to whittle down the small proportion of our land-mass that is designated under the Habitats Directive.
No wonder Tony Lowes, US-born founder of Friends of the Irish Environment, once declared that its aim was to "save Ireland from the Irish". As for what is going on now, right across the board, he says: "What's happening is scary. It's not based on science or reason, but on craven populism with an eye to the local elections in June."
During 2003, professional advice from heritage officials on the need to make appeals to An Bord Pleanála against local authority planning decisions was rejected by Cullen as often as it was accepted. In November 2002, when he started taking an active interest in this area, four out of five appeal recommendations were rejected. And the 28 cases on which appeals were recommended represent an infinitesimal fraction of more than 8,500 planning applications referred to the department annually because of their impact on archaeology, architecture or nature conservation. Comments are made in around a third of all these cases, amounting to nearly 3,000 a year.
Cullen's justification for his hands-on approach is that appeals were being made in his name and it would be "totally remiss" of him not to get involved. He told RTÉ that there was also "a whole range of Acts" which could be used to achieve the same outcome "without necessarily stopping development or slowing things up".
But the only reason why Cullen is involved at all is that heritage was reversed into his department on the formation of the Government in June 2002. There was to be a review of the whole area - not with the aim of saving more of Ireland's heritage, of course, but of preventing heritage from getting in the way of "development".
So Dúchas, the Heritage Service, was abolished last April and its staff now operate as a division of the department, which had "Heritage" inserted in its name for the sake of appearances. However, if the Government was serious about heritage protection, it would have strengthened Dúchas, not sunk it without trace.
Two Opposition spokesmen - Labour's Eamon Gilmore TD and Ciarán Cuffe TD, of the Green Party - said there was a clear conflict of interest between safeguarding heritage and promoting development. And Bernard Allen TD, of Fine Gael, wanted to know what motivated Cullen in making his decisions. On Allen's recommendation, the Oireachtas Environment Committee is to seek all the relevant papers on this "political involvement in the planning process".
What Allen particularly wants to know is whether representations were made in relation to the 28 cases on which appeals were recommended, especially the nine that were not appealed.
For example, heritage officials had serious concerns about the "adverse and unacceptable" impact ofa four-storey hotel directly opposite Trim Castle, in Co Meath, saying its scale and bulk was "inappropriate in this highly sensitive location". But because Cullen vetoed an appeal, An Bord Pleanála will not adjudicate on it.
When it came to Jim Mansfield's convention centre at Citywest, near Saggart, the department's heritage division said all ground-works should be monitored by a qualified archaeologist. Yet when South Dublin County Council omitted this requirement in its decision to approve the scheme, there wasn't a peep from the department.
If there was an independent heritage protection agency, such oversights would not arise. But there is no chance of that in the present political climate, where the ruling thesis may be summed up as follows: never mind the quality, feel the width, count the cranes, pour the concrete - and turn a blind eye to "unauthorised development".