An Irishman's Diary

I am convinced that history will vindicate the stance taken by the anti-road widening protesters camped at the Glen o' the Downs in County Wicklow. In the 10 years of protracted debate nobody has even attempted to claim it is a good idea to put a highway through a nature reserve. In the past three years some people, mainly young people and mainly - but by no means all - from outside Wicklow, have moved into the trees to suggest that this is a very bad idea indeed. However, I think it is honest to say they do not receive extensive support from commentators in the local pubs and among most members of the local community.

Every weekday morning from about 7.00 a.m. the locals see the traffic form a huge bottleneck at the southern end of the Glen where the dual carriageway becomes single carriageway. By 8.30 a.m. the traffic travelling through the Glen is at a standstill.

It is obvious that there is a basic level of inter-urban roads in which the State is deficient, and equally obvious that if the roads can't be built quickly enough the Celtic Tiger is on the wane and we are, to paraphrase the Cabinet sub-committee on infrastructure, banjaxed for all time.

Reserve against road

The tragedy of the Glen campaign against Wicklow County Council's road widening scheme is that it pitched the environment, in this case some 500 trees in the woodland nature reserve, against the crying need for a decent road. Why did it ever have to be one or the other? Why is it not acceptable to want a nature reserve preserved and decent road access to the capital as well.

On RTE's excellent programme "Nation Building" recently, the former Dublin City and County Manager, Mr Frank Feely, defended the destruction of much of Georgian Dublin in the 1970s with words to the effect that nobody was building anything in Dublin at the time; the Corporation was so grateful for any investment that it would have been crazy to refuse planning applications for development.

And so the ESB pulled down 14 Georgian houses in the middle of one of the longest terraces of Georgian houses anywhere in the world.

A similar argument was made by the Sunday World newspaper which came out at the time in favour of building Corporation offices on Wood Quay, even after it was discovered to be a significant archaeological heritage site. Nobody would have ever said that we should not have investment in Dublin. Nobody would have ever said that the Corporation workers were not entitled to nice new offices. It was simply a question of "why do they have to go there?"

Maybe we should remember what happened to both those campaigns: they both failed. The Georgian houses were pulled down and Wood Quay was built upon. But nobody would ever suggest now that what happened was a good thing or should be repeated.

Interest declared

It is time to declare an interest here. I live at the southern end of the Glen. I see the traffic snarl every morning and I have to cross it to get to the village, or join it to get to work. If Wicklow County Council's road widening proposals are proceeded with, and it looks as if they will be, I will fairly soon be able to travel from my home in Wicklow to Clonee in Co Meath, by high-grade dual carriageway or motorway. That's good.

But I walked these woods as a child more than 30 years ago. I remember the little stream which was culverted to make way for the existing stretch of dual carriageway. I also remember the waterside walk where we picked garlic, which was rendered so close to the Rosslare traffic thundering by that nobody walked there anymore, and it is now covered over with brambles.

Somewhere along the way the nature trail fell into disrepair, the explanatory pamphlets were removed, the trailstops and directional signs were allowed to rot, the picnic site, shelter and picnic tables up by Delgany golf course have fallen down or rotted.

I remember the road works in the 1970s when Barry's Bridge, the Republic's first flyover, and the dual-carriageway from the southern end of the Glen to Newtownmountkennedy was installed. Many would now say that the mistake was made then. In deciding that the main road would be upgraded, they were effectively deciding that the N11 would always go through the Glen. It would just be widened when extra capacity was needed.

Gone so far

Ten years ago it must have seemed so much easier to go ahead with the mistake than find another solution. At each turn this project has been allowed to proceed, not on any analysis of whether the nature reserve is the best place for the highway, but because it has already gone so far, and it is impractical to go back now. Sometimes we are prepared to make a mistake, to realise that what we want to do is not the best option, but we do it anyway, for financial or other reasons.

In this case we should however be honest with ourselves and admit it: it is a mistake to put a highway through a nature reserve.

I am convinced that in 25 years time another generation will look back at the environmental damage done to the Glen o' the Downs and ask: "With all their money, with all their ability, why did they put the highway through the nature reserve?"

Let's hope that as with Wood Quay and the ESB houses, and as we prepare to spend £6.3bn on roads over the next six years, that nobody would ever suggest that what has happened is good or should be repeated.