Roadstone Dublin Ltd has said there is no basis for a tribunal of inquiry into its purchase of State land at Glen Ding Woods in Co Wicklow in 1992. The company - a subsidiary of Cement Roadstone Holdings, of which Mr Haughey's personal financier, the late Mr Des Traynor, was chairman at the time of the purchase - has denied a potential site of archaeological interest was in the area which it had applied for planning permission to quarry.
Suggestions that Mr Traynor used political influence in the purchase of the 147-acre site in Blessington were completely unfounded, the company said in a statement.
The statement follows recent controversy over an area listed on the Sites and Monuments Records (SMR5:11), which the Blessington Heritage Trust has claimed was "delisted" before the sale of Glen Ding Woods. The OPW has maintained the site was never removed from the records and remains protected.
Roadstone Dublin Ltd said yesterday: "There has been confusion over a site of potential archaeological significance on the lands. SMR5:11, described as an enclosure on the records of the Office of Public Works, is the only listed site of potential archaeological interest on the 147 acres. However, it is not in the area where the company has applied for planning permission for extraction and as such will be preserved as per company policy.
"The company's Environmental Impact Statement and the planning application recognise the existence of SMR5:11. Roadstone now awaits the decision of Wicklow County Council Planning Department on its application for planning permission."
The company said the apparent attempt to link Roadstone's purchase of Glen Ding Woods with its then chairman, Mr Traynor, was "a spurious attempt to imply political interference. As a non-executive chairman of Roadstone's parent company, Mr Traynor had no role whatsoever in identifying or negotiating any Roadstone purchases".
A Fianna Fail TD for Wicklow, Mr Dick Roche, said last night he believed the circumstances of the sale of Glen Ding by the Department of Energy merited an investigation by the Dail Committee of Public Accounts.
In 1988 the OPW informed the Department of Energy that site SMR5:11 was simply a dried-up pond with no archaeological significance. The senior archaeologist who inspected the site said in his report that he had no objection to gravel digging in this area.
Earlier this year Roadstone Dublin Ltd applied to Wicklow County Council to extract sand and gravel from an additional 32.4 hectares at Deerpark over a period of 15 years.
On February 25th the chief archaeologist of the OPW national monuments division, Mr David Sweetman, informed the council that, given the high archaeological potential of ponds and wetlands, test excavations should be carried out on SMR5:11 before extraction works by the company.