Speech at Liberty Hall on Carrickmines

Thank you, and thank you Seán [Duffy].

I think I've been described as many things in the past weeks, but probably the most appropriate is the Green who took the stocks out of the Burkenstocks.

Coming back to the issue at hand today: There's been a huge amount of discussion about Carrickmines in particular over the last year, and it's regrettable that a huge amount of that discussion didn't take place previous to that. But I think it is very difficult for the lay person, and it's very difficult for the general public, to find out what is going on their behalf. I think a lot of the pre planning of the environmental impact statements [EIS] take place very much in isolation to the communities that surround them or indeed to the politicians who you would hope to be well informed on this issue.

It is regrettable that we found out an awful lot very late in the day. And I think that if there is a lesson from Carrickmines it is that we need to involve people in decision-making and get better studies done far earlier on in the planning process.

Just for a moment I want to make a comparison between how the National Roads Authority -- the NRA -- operates, and a similarly named organisation in the United States, the NRA, or the National Rifle Association. Because I do think there are similar principles in operation: They both claim to take the high ground on these issues, they both claim that their principles are based on long-established principles that go back through the mists of time.

The NRA in the States believes in the right to bear arms, and I think the NRA in Ireland believes in the right to build roundabouts. And I think that this kind of strong belief in what they are doing runs through both organisations.

Much as Michael Moore, in the film 'Bowling for Columbine', pointed out that maybe there's a need for the NRA in the States to change, I believe that there's a need for the NRA in Ireland to change.

To change its mission statement, to take on board the principles of sustainable development, and indeed to engage in a much more consultative arrangement with the communities and the organisations that it involves itself with. And I do think that the NRA has been very resolute, along with Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, in saying that this must happen, it has to happen, we've come up with the plans and we can't change it.

But I do think it is possible to change it. A lot of the options up to now show how we can make simple changes in the layout of the junction at Carrickmines.The spectrum of those changes have been discussed.Over the course of the past year, people have talked about going above the road by going above the archaeology with a flyover...tunnelling under the archaeology by going underneath. I think these are very extreme measures and I don't think they're workable. But I do think the measures that are being spoken about more recently, of bending the road, strikes a very strong chord amongst the general public.

And I do believe that politically that is a feasible choice.

I also believe that if this is done in association with reducing the scale and the complexity of the road junction at Carrickmines, it is possible to find a realistic solution to the challenge that is out there.

I don't think it's going to be easy, and I don't think we can redraw the junction overnight and proceed with it tomorrow but I do think that it's remiss -- to be mild about it -- I do think it's remiss of the NRA and of the county council not to be looking in detail at those options at this stage.

Because if they had seriously considered these options a year ago, we would be much further down the road to getting a workable solution that would allow the motorway to continue, and to continue in the very near future.

And I do think that the kind of drawings we're looking at on the map there, while the plan view does perhaps simplify the proposed arrangement, and we do have to deal with the contours of the site, we do have to deal with the legal complexities of the legalities of the adjoining landowners, I still believe it's possible, in a relatively short time-frame, to propose an alternative that works, that gets the road build in the next few years, and gets the castle preserved. I think that that can be done.

It may well require a new inquiry, it may well require land acquisition, but it is in no way similar to the very long and protracted public enquiry that took place over the original road, because the original public enquiry involved many kilometres of roadway. Here we only have to deal with a relatively short section, a few hundred metres in length, and we only have to deal with a very limited amount of landowners.

I would of course point out that Shane Ross is one of those landowners, but I'm sure he'll be amenable to allowing the road to move slightly closer to his own property.

On the wider issue that Victor [Boyhan] commented on, this whole thing about a critical infrastructural bill coming through the Dáil in the autumn, I agree that we do need to speed up projects, but I do think that that can be done without compromising the archaeology or the wider environmental issues that are out there in Ireland today.

Commentators very often like pointing out that a snail is holding up a by-pass, or that salmon are holding up something else, but I think in doing so they belittle the whole wider environmental implications of these projects that have to be taken on board if we are to take our obligations towards our communities but to future generations seriously...

I think the rush and the pace of the Celtic Tiger over the last few years will be forgotten about in a generation's time. I do think that we'll look back at the late 90s and early 21st century and say why did we go to fast and destroy so much in order to deliver so little.

I do think we have to think long and hard about making very rapid decisions. To look at a castle that has stood there for half a millennia and to say, 'no, it has to be completed tomorrow or by the end of this year,' is to really belittle the value of archaeology and the cultural inheritance that we are custodians for future generations.

To conclude, I do believe that there is a realistic alternative out there. I believe Vincent [Salafia] and Seán [Duffy] and others have illustrated that, and that must be investigated.

But I might end up by just thinking about the idea of what this whole Carrickmines valley could be. I grew up a little further south in Shankill, and I'm aware of the fantastic archaeological heritage all the way along this valley, from the dolmens, from the cromlechs, further down Carrickbrennan Road, to the rich archaeological sites to the north of this.

I remember about four years ago visiting a ring fort that is situated where the business park is currently being built at Cherrywood. Looking at this incredibly rich archaeology of the ring forts and the burial sites, and then watching the earth-moving equipment arriving up and building some very mediocre buildings.

I thought to myself, surely to God we can safeguard this archaeology for future generations, have some kind of an archaeological trail that goes all the way down the Shanganagh River, all the way up through Carrickmines. Surely there must be a way for development to take place, for the M50 road to be completed, and also to safeguard the archaeology.

And really to finish up by quoting the phrase, I'm not sure who came up with it first, Seán or Vincent, or others, which is that the road can move but the castle can't, and I think therein lies the solution to this. I don't think it's a complex solution. I don't think it's an elusive solution. I think that it can be delivered, and I think it will delay the completion of the M50 motorway very little, if at all and I would hope that the political will would be there .

We have to face up to the Olivia Mitchell's of this world and say, "Look, we do need the motorway completed, but it can be done and we can safeguard the castle. And I think that having you here this evening, and having a meeting like this, it shows that this is possible.

Thank you.