Opposition parties have criticised the Government over its National Monuments (Amendment) Bill, claiming the proposed legislation is "flawed and irresponsible".
Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, told the Dáil today that the Bill, published by the Minister for Environment earlier this week, "effectively facilitates the bulldozing of national monuments".
Mr Sargent said: "If the Minister is concerned, as we all are, to ensure that public funds are spent in the most effective way possible, the technology exists to ensure that national monuments are possible to identify at the planning stage before construction."
The Minister for Environment, Mr Cullen, dismissed suggestions the Government was interested in bulldozing any monuments; he said legislation needed to be reformed as it bore no relation to "the requirements and infrastructural issues in today's modern Ireland".
Mr Cullen intends the legislation to clear the way for the completion of the 10 kilometre stretch of motorway at Carrickmines Castle in Co Dublin.
Construction of the motorway has been stalled by a High Court ruling quashing a decision of Mr Cullen and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to give joint consent for "the demolition, removal in whole or in part, disfigurement" of Carrickmines Castle.
If the Minister is concerned, as we all are, to ensure that public funds are spent in the most effective way possible, the technology exists to ensure that national monuments are possible to identify at the planning stage before construction
Labour's spokesman on the Environment, Mr Eamon Gilmore, said the proposed legislation would allow the Minister to order "the demolition, sale, or export of any national monument or any part of any national monument", none of which, he claimed, has anything to do with the completion of the M50 motorway.
Mr Gilmore complained that the bill only gave the National Museum 14 days to investigate and assess the value of any monument or site of potential importance.
He called for more time to consider the detail of the Bill and "to take advice on it and for those outside the House who have an interest in these matters to be able to comment and express an opinion on it".
He criticised the Government's intention to run this Bill through the House in advance of the summer recess, saying it had "much wider significance than we were led to believe".
The Sinn Féin spokesman on the Environment, Mr Arthur Morgan, accused the Minister of putting the interests of developers and the National Roads Authority before the "safeguarding our heritage".
