Carrickmines section of M50 motorway dropped

The final leg of Dublin's M50 motorway between Ballinteer and Shankill is to be built and opened without the controversial Carrickmines interchange.

Under a new "supplementary contract" agreed between Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and road builders Ascon, work on the Carrickmines junction has been suspended and the road will open in August 2004 in two sections, without the Carrickmines link. The new contract provides for the M50 to be extended from its existing terminus at Ballinteer to a proposed junction at Leopardstown Road, north of Carrickmines.

The section from Laughanstown, south of the now suspended Carrickmines interchange, is to be built concurrently.

Both sections are to open in August 2005 leaving the C-ring motorway incomplete.

Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown director of transportation, Mr Eamon O'Hare, said the new deal with Ascon was an "attempt to factor in a situation where we proceed with what we can proceed". The extension of the motorway to the Leopardstown Road interchange would bring it within a mile of the N11 route at White's Cross and the construction of a new road, the Drummartin link from the M50 to Goatstown, would ease traffic in the vicinity of the Sandyford Industrial Estate.

Mr O'Hare stressed that if outstanding challenges to the Carrickmines interchange were settled "within a reasonable amount of time" it would be possible to open the Carrickmines section of the road in September 2005.

However, conservationists opposed to the motorway junction which crosses the archaeological remains of the medieval Carrickmines Castle said yesterday that such a resolution was "extremely unlikely". A legal challenge to the construction of the motorway, because of the significance of the archaeological remains discovered, has still not been resolved. A council initiative to seek the consent of the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, to allow the motorway to proceed - in effect asking the Minister to assert that the Carrickmines artefacts are not a national monument - has not received a definitive response.

The Fine Gael TD for Dublin South, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council was left with little option because of fears that it would face large demands for compensation from Ascon due to the non-accessibility of the site.