Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council has gvien the Supreme Court and undetaking to cease all work on the site at Carrickmines Castle until Monday.
The undertaking follows today's hearing in the SC where Mr Gordon Lucas and Mr Dominic Dunne, both of Dublin, seeking an injunction preventing the County Council from dismantling a 10-20 metre section of a 200-metre ditch for the purposes of reassembling it at an unspecified location.
Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council will cease all activity on the site unitl the SC makes its ruling on the issues at 10am on Monday morning.
Earlier today, the County Council admitted it did not have a statutory consent for works at Carrickmines Castle on the line of the southeastern motorway.
Mr Gordon Lucas and Mr Dominic Dunne, both of Dublin, were in court this morning to prevent the County Council from dismantling a 10-20 metre section of a 200-metre ditch for the purposes of reassembling it at an unspecified location.
They say that under Sections 14 and 26 of the National Monuments Act of 1930, the council were required to apply for licences to excavate the site.
Counsel Mr Frank Callanan SC, for the plaintiffs, said two excavation licences had been granted previously, but that they were long since out of date and that the council was, therefore, committing a criminal offence under the act by the excavations on the ditch, which began last weekend.
Furthermore, Mr Callanan argued that Dúchas, which falls under the remit of the Department of the Environment, issued an excavation licence for the work, but this has been objected to by the National Museum of Ireland, which, again under the Act, they had a statutory obligation to consult on the matter.
This consultation, Mr Callanan said, had not taken place.
Dun Laogharie-Rathgdown County Council, represented by Mr Dermot Flanagan SC, said the Act only applied to National Monuments and that there had been no indication, nor had the County Council been shown any information, that would lead the Council to believe that they were dealing with on National Monument.
On the contrary, Mr Flanagan argued, in the Environmental Impact Statement of October 1997 there had been no reference to the site as National Monument, but only as a "monument".
In addition, he said, when the Council applied for the original excavation licences, which were awarded to them by Duchas, there had been no objection from Dúchas to the Council's plans for the site.
Consequently, he said, if neither Dúchas, nor the Minister of the Environment had recognised the site as a national monument then it was not a national monument and, therefore, the County Council was not breaching the Act, nor was there any validity in the arguments being put forward by the plaintiffs.
Under the Act a national monument is defined as a site or monument "the preservation of which is of national importance."
Mr Flanagan also argued that the plaintiffs had not raised the issue in time, and that by now it was too late.