The Government may have to draft emergency legislation to allow work to go ahead on the M50 motorway at Carrickmines Castle in south Dublin, after it suffered yet another court defeat yesterday.
The High Court overturned the approval granted by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, last December for the destruction of the medieval Carrickmines Castle.
However, describing the latest problem to afflict the M50 as "a technical glitch", Mr Justice Kearns said there was "an overriding requirement" to bring an end to litigation surrounding Carrickmines.
The Department of the Environment said that it would not decide on its next move until it had carefully studied the judgment, although new legislation is believed inevitable.
The judgment marks the second time within a week that the Government has fallen foul of the courts, after the High Court ruled that some immigration powers are unconstitutional.
Calling for speedy action, the National Roads Authority warned that the motorway could not be completed by September 2005 unless work at Carrickmines begaby April. Delays would cost €1 million a month, a spokesman warned.
The Minister and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council gave joint consent in July 2003 for "the demolition, removal in whole or in part, disfigurement" of Carrickmines Castle.
This led a protester, Mr Michael Mulcreevy, to apply in December to the High Court for leave to take a judicial review. The High Court refused, and he appealed the case to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court this week found that the protester had grounds for a judicial review, and directed that the High Court hear the case quickly.
The higher court found that Mr Mulcreevy had shown that the Minister should not have used regulations enacted by the State in 1996 and 2002 to order destruction of the castle.
Until 1996 a national monument could be destroyed if the Office of Public Works and the relevant local authority consented, and if the Minister for the Environment subsequently approved.
The OPW was removed by regulation in 1996 as a deciding party and replaced by the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. The latter's functions were later transferred to Environment.
In his ruling yesterday, Mr Justice Kearns said the case involved a simple point: whether primary legislation could be amended by secondary legislation (regulations or ministerial orders). It could not, he found.
Mr Dermot Flanagan SC, for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council, gave an undertaking that no work would be carried out that would involve the "destruction, removal, defacement or interference" of or with the Carrickmines remains.
Following the case, Mr Mulcreevy said the State had been given a "marvellous opportunity" to build a road round the Carrickmines remains, although this has been totally ruled out.
Ascon, the contractor employed by the National Roads Authority, is currently building within 100 yards of either side of the remains.