The proposed National Monuments (Amendment) Bill 2004 amounts to an act of vandalism, that is "reprehensible if not indeed sinister", a conference against the legislation was told yesterday.
Mr Frank Callanan SC, who won a Supreme Court action against Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council last year preventing the demolition of the Carrickmines Castle site, said the speed of the Bill's introduction and the lack of consultation prior to its publication compounded some "objectionable features".
The Bill, published last week, will give the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, the power to decide what level of protection a national monument needs, if any. It will also give him or her the power to order the completion of infrastructural projects even if they impinge on national monuments once they have been archeologically excavated. Publishing the Bill, Mr Cullen said it was being introduced specifically to address the situation at Carrickmines where the construction of the M50 motorway there has been halted since last year.
Mr Callanan said, however, the Bill would not be limited to Carrickmines and was a profound and radical change to the provisions of the existing National Monuments Acts 1930-1994.
"In what is by any standards a frighteningly primitive piece of draft legislation, the Minister seeks to piggyback a licence to destroy other national monuments on the back of completion of the motorway at Carrickmines," he said.
Dr Seán Duffy, chairman of the Friends of Medieval Dublin and lecturer in medieval history at Trinity College, described the legislation as "draconian", saying Mr Cullen was "effectively ordering the castle's destruction, despite being told by the High Court and the Supreme Court not to."
He said among the items that would be destroyed at the 13th century Carrickmines castle site were an underground chapel, a medieval watermill and medieval water-ditch.
Dr Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, of the Celtic Studies Department of NUI Maynooth, said the Government "needs to start listening to the people and stop listening to the PDs". She pointed out that Mr Cullen was a member of the Progressive Democrats before he re-joined Fianna Fáil.
She said the Bill, if enacted, would allow the completion of the M3 motorway which would "plough through the archaeological complex at the Hill of Tara which dates back to 4000 BC and destroy 28 archaeological sites".
"I would call on the the President, Mrs McAleese, and the Taoiseach to tell Mr Cullen to stop Minister Cullen's Bill."
Ms Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick of the Rally Round the Tower group in Clondalkin, Co Dublin, described the campaign against the development of apartments and a restaurant around a medieval round tower in the area.
"The attitude of our local authority [South Dublin County Council] seems to be that heritage sites have to be exploited for tourism in order to justify their continued existence," she said.
