Dick Roche's decision to permit the M3 to proceed through the Tara valley will irreparably compromise one of the most important landscapes in Ireland, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
Not for the first time, Dick Roche sought yesterday to minimise his role as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, in dealing with the turbulent issue of Tara and the M3 motorway. If it wasn't for his polished Wicklow accent, you might have thought he was Pontius Pilate.
Yet again, he stressed the fact that this highly contentious project had been through the planning process and was approved by An Bord Pleanála as long ago as August, 2003, following a lengthy oral hearing. It was not up to him to revisit that decision at this stage, still less turn it on its head.
Of course, he was aware of the growing chorus of opposition in Ireland and abroad to the very idea that the €800 million tolled motorway would snake through the Tara valley. But he insisted that his remit was a narrow one, confined to the issue of how archaeological sites along the route would be treated.
In this, Mr Roche was being disingenuous. The net point he had to deal with was whether to grant licences for archaeological excavations at some 38 different sites between Dunshaughlin and Navan - many of them in the immediate vicinity of Tara, one of the most sensitive places in Ireland.
Last November, when I put it to him that the controversy over the M3 was not really about its impact on so many archaeological sites, he said: "It's about the landscape, isn't it?"
Yes, indeed it is about Tara's landscape and how that would be irreparably scarred by running a motorway through it.
Had the Minister chosen to exercise his discretion under the National Monuments Acts not to grant licences for archaeological excavations along the chosen route, he would have spared that landscape for time immemorial and forced the National Roads Authority (NRA) to come up with an alternative.
But he didn't. Even after reading the entire file. Even after meeting some of the objectors in private.