Madam, - George Eogan (March 26th) declares himself "very disappointed" with the actions of Minister for the Environment John Gormley regarding the Tara/M3/Rath Lugh situation.
Frankly, I've long ago ceased being disappointed with the unprincipled actions of Mr Gormley and his party since being effectively bought off upon entering Government.
His Pontius Pilate routine regarding Tara has been quite disingenuous as it's always been wholly within his power to use existing legislation to have stopped the motorway.
To watch someone, so resolutely opposed to this while on the back benches, now actively facilitating the violation of this landscape starkly exposes the vacuous core of Mr Gormley's party's so-called principles.
Professor Eogan - a distinguished retired archaeologist, and one of Ireland's foremost experts on early Irish sites - was one of many experts in this field who put on record their opinion that the Government should not route the motorway through the Gabhra Valley, as the area constituted an entire archaeological complex.
In January 2005 Professor Eogan stated to the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment that "to put something as intrusive as a major roadway is very, very strange: I'd go as far as to say a very odd decision".
A lot of the background to this situation is indeed "odd".
Do people not consider the glaringly obvious question: why were the Government, with the assistance of the NRA, so doggedly determined to route this motorway through this particular valley, in defiance of all the expert advice, which said, quite categorically not to?
This was also done against all the protests and outrage, both national and international, not to mention public opinion. (An Irish Times poll in July 2007 showed 74 per cent of people surveyed opposed the motorway as currently routed.)
Do people not ask themselves why it was so vital to push it through and vandalise irreparably this sacred place?
Up until now the Wood Quay debacle, in the 1970s, which destroyed a vital part of Viking Dublin, was the high water mark for destruction of our national heritage.
I fear the Tara situation is now a lost battle, but doesn't it
show how 30 years of "progress" have brought precious little
enlightenment? - Yours, etc,
DAVID MARLBOROUGH,
Kenilworth Park,
Dublin.