Minister for the Environment Dick Roche has been threatened with a High Court action to secure the preservation of the internationally important Woodstown Viking site in Waterford, The Irish Times has learned.
Waterford-based solicitor Gerard Halley, who owns a farm in the area, has alleged "gross incompetence, lack of communication and manipulative dishonesty on the part of elements of the various State authorities involved".
According to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, he maintains that this "serious administrative breakdown" will jeopardise preservation of the ninth-century site as well as the completion of Waterford's N25 bypass.
His allegations were emphatically denied by John McDermott, acting principal officer in the National Monuments Service, who chairs the Woodstown Working Group. In a letter to Mr Halley last August, he also said they were "hurtful and offensive".
The documents, which were obtained from the Department of the Environment, show that Mr Halley was notified of a compulsory purchase order (CPO) for land on the proposed alternative route of the bypass on June 26th last.
He is seeking to have the CPO rescinded on the basis that the precise boundaries of the national monument at Woodstown have yet to be determined and that the land in question contains archaeological remains which could relate to the Viking site.
In a letter to the Minister on July 24th, Mr Halley wrote: "I must now put you on notice that I will be left with no alternative . . . other than to institute proceedings against you and the State should you fail to take the specific action I have requested."
The nine-page letter said that since the only real threat to the national monument came from the road scheme, it logically followed that an appropriate alternative route that would not impact on the monument "must be identified".
However, this could not be done until the extent of the Woodstown site was first determined and then "the entire monument (including its associated features) . . . is subsequently 'secured, protected and preserved' from the road construction".
Mr Halley pointed out that he had commissioned, at his own expense, a geophysical survey of land along the alternative route for the bypass last March. This showed that there was "considerable. . . archaeological potential in these areas".
However, minutes of the first meeting of the Woodstown Working Group on November 30th last show that Brian Duffy, the Department of the Environment's chief archaeologist, said it would have "no role whatsoever in relation to the alternative route". His view was challenged by Dr Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum, who said in a letter to Mr Duffy that he was "surprised and dismayed by the unwillingness to engage the working group in any involvement in or consideration of the alternative".
"At the very least, this amounts to an unacceptably limited approach to a highly relevant archaeological landscape," Dr Wallace wrote, adding that the process of advising the Minister on Woodstown "may be flawed and incomplete in these circumstances".
In his reply, Mr Duffy said the remit of the working group was to report on the future of the national monument. Results of archaeological investigations on the alternative N25 route would be available to the group, so he did not agree that its report would be flawed.
However, Dr Wallace countered that there was "no suggestion" in the Minister's statement of May 10th, 2005, which declared Woodstown a national monument, that the working group's deliberations would be confined to the already known Viking site.
Mr Duffy said in a subsequent letter he did not agree that "artificial boundaries" had been placed on the site. If archaeological evidence was submitted to the working group that it was more extensive, "then this will of course be considered by the group".
