Minister for the Environment Dick Roche made several amendments to the directions he issued on archaeological aspects of the M3 motorway, in response to concerns expressed by Dr Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show his handwritten notes in the margins indicating that the timescale for excavating some of the 38 sites along the most sensitive section of the route should be extended.
"I am very anxious to incorporate all [ underlined] of Dr Wallace's points in the final decision and I would like a note on the points set out below," the Minister told his department's chief archaeological adviser, Brian Duffy, in a note on the file. "Furthermore I note that, in accordance with the Act, should a national monument be discovered subsequent to the issue of these directions, works affecting the monument must cease pending consideration of the matter by the Minister."
However, in relation to Dr Wallace's opposition to routing the M3 past the Hill of Tara, he said this was "an issue already decided in the planning process, and on which I feel I cannot reverse given my role under the [ National Monuments] Act".
The Minister rejected as "impractical" a proposal by the statutory Heritage Council on May 3rd last that Tara and its surroundings should be designated as a landscape conservation area to prevent inappropriate development.
In his final decision, dated May 11th, Mr Roche said the best way to protect the setting of Tara from "the development pressures which can arise in the vicinity of new motorway[s]" was through Meath County Council's new development plan.
He also noted that the National Roads Authority had indicated that an alternative lighting design would be used at the Blundelstown interchange, just 1.2km north of Tara, and that the 24 lighting columns originally proposed would be omitted.
Before making his final decision, the Minister for the Environment said he read all of the documentation on file and also had meetings with Dr Muireann Ní Bhrolcáin, of the Save Tara-Skryne group; Dr Edel Bhreatnach, one of the leading scholars on Tara, and noted archaeologist Prof George Eogan.
"Tara is a unique cultural landscape which has a significance for our national heritage that extends beyond the sum of its individual components. It is one of a small number of monumental complexes that are of more than usual cultural importance from the standpoint not only of archaeology but also of history, mythology, folklore, language, placenames study and, in the case of Tara, even of national identity." - Dr Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum, in his letter to Minister for the Environment Dick Roche on March 16th, 2005.
"The landscape through which the [M3] route runs is one that has changed completely many times in the past and today bears no resemblance to the landscape that existed in the prehistoric period . . . The proposed route is farther away from the hill than the existing N3 and when the motorway is completed and landscaped it will not have a major impact on the amenity of the national monuments on the Hill [ of Tara]." - Brian Duffy, chief archaeologist, Department of the Environment, in his report.