Roadstone Dublin Ltd has said it is considering its options following An Bord Pleanala's refusal of planning permission for it to begin quarrying at Glen Ding, Co Wicklow.
An Bord Pleanala announced its decision yesterday following an appeal against the granting of planning permission by Wicklow County Council last December. The decision leaves Roadstone, a subsidiary of CRH, unable to proceed with its plans to quarry the land, the purpose for which it bought it in 1992.
The appeal was brought by Mr Frank Corcoran on behalf of Blessington Heritage Trust; An Taisce; the Blessington and District Community Council; and the Save Glen Ding Group.
CRH bought 147 acres of land from the State at Glen Ding wood, Blessington, Co Wicklow, in January 1992 and has been seeking permission for quarrying on part of it since. Roadstone Dublin Ltd has been quarrying on an adjacent site for some years, and wished to have permission for a new quarry before the original site was exhausted.
Local residents and other interests have opposed Roadstone's plan on the grounds that the site in question is of archaeological value. The company has consistently said it would not quarry from archaeologically significant areas, and would abide by the planning process.
The controversial sale of the land by the State to Roadstone is being examined by the Flood planning tribunal. The late Mr Des Traynor, organiser of Mr Charles Haughey's finances, was chairman of CRH when the purchase was made. Mr Haughey was Taoiseach at the time. The land was sold for £1.25 million.
The company has always rejected suggestions that Mr Traynor had any involvement in the matter. He was a non-executive chairman of the company and had no role in advising on, identifying or purchasing any sites, the company says.
In September 1996, 80 acres of the land was rezoned in a way that would allow Roadstone Dublin Ltd to extract sand and gravel reserves. The rezoning proposal brought 1,400 objections, largely on the grounds that the area was of archaeological importance.
Councillors voted for the rezoning after the Office of Public Works said the site was not, in fact, of archaeological importance. The council granted planning permission for the quarrying activities last December.
In January this year the High Court quashed the development plan for Blessington, ruling in favour of the Blessington Heritage Trust, which had challenged its validity. The land thus reverted to its designation in the 1989 County Wicklow Development Plan as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
An Bord Pleanala said yesterday that the proposed development "would contravene materially the provisions of the development plan for the area, would militate against the preservation of the existing character and recreational utility of the area and would be contrary to the proper planning and development of the area".
The decision was based on the designation of the site as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the nature and extent of the extraction of material proposed and the proximity of proposed pit faces to areas of natural amenity.
"The site of the proposed development is located within an area of archaeological potential in close proximity to a recorded monument, Rath Turtle Moat," Bord Pleanala said. "It is considered that the proposed development, which involves a significant removal of material from the site and a significant alteration in the topography of the area, would be premature in the absence of a detailed archaeological baseline study of the site and its relationship to the nearby Rath Turtle Moat."
At the Bord Pleanala appeal hearing earlier this year, the Blessington Heritage Trust criticised the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) commissioned by Roadstone in regard to its reliance on the national sites and monuments record, which one of the State's foremost experts, Dr Eoin Grogan of the Office of Public Works, had said was incomplete. The EIS had been used to dispute the statements that the development would affect an area of archaeological value.
A Roadstone spokesman said yesterday that the company would now take time to consider its options and would discuss them with its advisers.
A Bord Pleanala decision can be appealed to the High Court, but only on a point of law.
The company spokesman said the workforce at the adjacent quarry was devastated by the decision. He said 75 people depended on the quarry for employment.
The Blessington Heritage Trust has made a submission to the Flood planning tribunal on the sale of the land in 1992, and the tribunal is considering this.
The Labour Party's deputy leader, Mr Brendan Howlin, last year called for an investigation into the sale of the land. "There are questions to be answered in terms of the mechanisms used to sell the land, whether there was competitive tendering and whether there was an independent valuation of the land," he said.
The Fianna Fail TD for Wicklow, Mr Dick Roche, said the sale of the land and its subsequent rezoning for quarrying was "appalling". He called for an inquiry into the sale by the Dail Public Accounts Committee.
He said he had no doubt that the then minister for energy, Mr Robert Molloy, had acted entirely on the advice of his officials in relation to the sale.