Roads on heritage sites criticised

The Taoiseach was urged to examine the membership of the National Roads Authority because of its apparent "unerring instinct for building roads across heritage sites".

Labour leader Mr Pat Rabbitte said the NRA had discovered another archaeological find of considerable importance in Waterford, following the finds and subsequent problems in Carrickmines and the hill of Tara. He suggested that instead of "condemning snails" the Taoiseach should consider why engineering and other experts could not construct a section of motorway "around the hill of Tara rather than through it". Sometimes "the longest way around is the shortest time home".

Mr Ahern agreed it was "extraordinary" that in many of "our major road projects we seem to find such locations". However, if there were no difficulties with buildings or monuments, the problems seemed to occur with "grass, plant or snail". Archaeological checks should be done on road building projects at the very earliest stage in their development but it is always "when we are far into the process" that the problems arise, he said.

Stressing that "I have no reason to put roads through national monuments or other buildings of heritage value", he said that in practically every road project "archaeological work of one kind or another was required".

It was significant, he said, that "the archaeological profession is one of the fastest growing areas of employment in the country" but he did not believe that matters had changed so radically in the past decade to "justify this level of demand".

He had asked why there were archaeological delays "everywhere we looked" and an official told him that "when you spend €100 million on archaeology you tend to have a great many people looking, who in turn tend to find a great deal".