Minister for the Environment John Gormley is to carry out a complete review of the State's archaeological policy and practice and may propose amending or even repealing the 2004 National Monuments Act.
This Act, introduced by Martin Cullen, invested the Minister with sole discretion to decide the fate of any national monument that might be in the path of a motorway. It was specifically designed to facilitate earlier delivery of the Government's roads programme.
Yesterday, after releasing a file showing how his predecessor Dick Roche made his decision to permit the "preservation by record" of a prehistoric henge at Lismullen, Co Meath, Mr Gormley said he was already consulting archaeologists on what should be changed.
"I want to be as open as possible, to find the best way of going forward", he said.
Asked if he would consider amending or repealing the 2004 Act, he said: "If changing legislation emerges from this process, I will look at that." However, he appeared to accept the route of the M3 past the Hill of Tara as a fait accompli.
"That goes back a long time before I came in here," he said. "I can't go back and revise all those decisions. That's it. All I can do is look to the future and see where we go from here."
He said he had been talking to Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey about the need to minimise the visual impact of the motorway on Tara.
"I said very clearly that on this particular stretch I don't want to see the sort of development you might get, like service stations."
Acting on advice given to Mr Roche by the Heritage Council, Mr Gormley said he was looking at the possibility of having it designated as a Landscape Conservation Area under the 2000 Planning Act.
However, this would only restrict developments that would otherwise be exempt. He repeated an earlier statement that he could not "revisit" Mr Roche's decision on Lismullen, which was made on the same day as he took office three weeks ago. "The Attorney General's advice was that I couldn't do that unless there was a material change in circumstances."
Asked what this might be, the Minister replied: "If they found something new in excavating the area, and it would have to be a significant find, the legal advice is that I could then revisit it. If there was another national monument discovered, I would have to look at that.
"We're talking about one road, but there's going to be many, many more roads built in this country," he said.
"I'm not an expert on archaeology but I want to talk to all relevant stakeholders on how best to go forward and archaeologists know I'm genuine about this."
Dr Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum, who flanked Mr Gormley at the briefing, said the "kernel of this difficulty" regarding the M3 was that the selected route was one that had been rejected by archaeologists because of the impact it would have on Tara.
"I regard the whole place as a national monument," he said, adding that his views on the M3 were well known. "My job is to give advice and I have to live with whatever the decision is." If the motorway went ahead, it would have to be "sheathed, shaded and screened".
The Campaign to Save Tara said the file on Lismullen released yesterday showed that another site at Baronstown, "destroyed under cover of darkness during the early hours of Tuesday morning", was considered to be a national monument by Dr Wallace.
"We call on Mr Gormley to review and make public all documentation relating to all archaeology in the valley," said Dr Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin. "These documents should be assessed from a heritage standpoint and not in relation to infrastructural development."
