Madam, - Dick Roche, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government outlines the limits of his responsibilities, as he sees them, with regard to Tara and the M3 (April 7th). He assures your readers, however, that he will "act within the provisions of the National Monuments Acts which set out the procedures for resolving such matters".
Under these Acts the Minister may choose from a number of options.
He may, for instance, choose to grant licences for the archaeological excavation of those sites and monuments lying in the Tara-Skryne valley and by so doing allow the construction of the motorway and interchange to proceed as planned. Conversely, he may decide not to grant excavation licences and so compel Meath County Council and the National Roads Authority to reconsider alternatives for this relatively short stretch of motorway.
The Minister also has a third option under the Acts. He has the power to designate the Tara-Skryne valley an "archaeological area" - similar to the Boyne Valley and Lough Crew, in Co Meath - under Section 5 of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1987. This would also ensure that an alternative would have to be found.
The National Monuments (Amendment) Act 2004 (introduced by Martin Cullen, then Minister for the Environment and now Minister for Transport) provides Mr Roche with yet another option. Section 5 states that "any works of an archaeological nature that are carried out in respect of an approved road development shall be carried out in accordance with the directions of the Minister, which directions shall be issued following consultation by the Minister with the director of the National Museum of Ireland". This section of the amendment further states that such decisions can take into "consideration" matters of "public interest" - "in allowing the carrying out of works notwithstanding that such works may involve (i) injury to or interference with the national monument concerned, or (ii) the destruction in whole or in part of the national monument concerned".
Under the provision of the National Monuments Acts, therefore, the protection or destruction of Tara's historic landscape appears to be solely a matter of Ministerial discretion. The Minister's intentions may be in the "public interest"; but the Government's obligation to protect Tara, the nation's most celebrated historical and archaeological area, must surely be in the national interest. - Yours, etc.,
JOE FENWICK,
Department of Archaeology,
National University of IreIand,
Galway.