Minister defends motorway route despite growing criticism

The Government has acted "as sensibly as it can" in deciding to allow the South Eastern Motorway through the Carrickmines Castle site in south County Dublin, the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, said yesterday.

Reacting to the Supreme Court decision that work on the removal of the castle's walled ditch should be halted, Mr Brennan insisted that "the motorway must go ahead as soon as possible". Mr Brennan said as a result of the Government's compromise plan "the castle is totally preserved" and insisted that "only the walls" were affected by the route of the motorway. The Government would, he said, be studying the court judgment and taking legal advice.

Opposition politicians and environmentalists have sharply criticised the Government's handling of the whole affair. Mr Dominic Dunne and Mr Gordon Lucas, the "Carrickminders" in whose names the Supreme Court case was taken, yesterday thanked the Friends of Carrickmines Castle group and all other supporters. The group congratulated Mr Dunne and Mr Lucas on the success of their application and announced the launch of a membership drive. It said the State's action so far "was probably a crime".

The Fine Gael TD for Dublin South, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said the implications of the Supreme Court decision "are enormous". She said the situation gave the answer to why "the cost of our infrastructure is so much greater than anywhere else".

She will be requesting an emergency meeting of Dún Laoghaire- Rathdown County Council so that the issue can be reconsidered.

"It is heartbreaking that after years of work and hundreds of million of euro that the council is now forced into postponing the completion of the ring road around Dublin. But we cannot leave the council or the taxpayer indefinitely exposed to compensation claims and we don't know how or when this legal process will end.

"Neither can south Dublin be expected to tolerate the current appalling traffic congestion while a small group, with no personal financial exposure, seek every legal effort and other means to frustrate efforts to solve the traffic problems."

The Labour Party spokesman on the environment, Mr Eamon Gilmore TD, claimed "the crisis" could have been avoided "had the correct route been selected in the first place". He said the Labour Party had continually opposed this route. "Labour councillors challenged it at meetings of the county council. I challenged it at the public inquiry in early 1998, and I subsequently made a strong case to the Minister for the Environment against the new route."

The Green Party spokesman on local government, Mr Ciarán Cuffe TD, welcomed the Supreme Court decision saying he hoped that "reason will prevail and that the castle will be saved".

"My complaint to the Garda last weekend about the activities of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council in dismantling the wall and fosse still stands," he said.

Information on the Friends of Carrickmines Castle may be had at www.carrickminescastle.org