Call to update heritage laws

Legislation dealing with sites of historical importance must be updated, it was urged today.

The National Roads Authority said building projects are being delayed due to the lack of adequate heritage law and information on national monuments.

Michael Egan of the NRA said there was no official list of national monument sites.

“There is no record of monuments and places,” he said.

“And no grading as to when a national monument is of high importance. That makes life difficult for the NRA and for developers across the country.”

The Government-appointed body called for the 74-year-old National Monuments Act to be updated as it launched its annual report in Dublin today.

“It goes back to 1930 and it’s outdated, it’s in need of a total overhaul,” Mr Egan said.

“It’s not in tune at all with the needs of today and the scale of development being taken.”

The NRA is currently in discussions with the Environment Department and the National Museum over what procedure to take after it emerged the planned route of the Waterford city by-pass will go through a Viking settlement.

There was no previous record of the site and it only emerged after the NRA carried out an impact survey as part of an agreement with the Environment Department.

The NRA said the preferred approach to deal with the site would be to preserve it and then build over it.

The group said it could cost €6m to excavate the site.

The new M50 south eastern motorway should be finished by next December but a 150 metre section, containing the site of Carrickmines Castle, will be left unfinished.

The NRA said there needs to be a quicker way to resolve these architectural disputes.

As they were unable to finish the motorway after preservation groups lodged a legal challenge and prevented the work being carried out.

“We take our environmental responsibilities extremely seriously,” Mr Egan said.

“Over the last two or three years we have spent over €6m on the Carrickmines site, and over €10m on the south eastern scheme itself.”

The NRA also advocated raising another €2bn to build the new routes from Dublin to Cork and Dublin to Galway by 2008.

The authority is looking to raise the money privately by placing additional toll schemes on existing roads the Co Kildare M7 by-pass, the Jack Lynch tunnel in Cork and the N2 scheme in Co Dublin.

Eleven of the major schemes under the National Development Plan 2000-2006 were completed last year.

Work is already underway on constructing the Dundalk Western by-pass as part of the €8bn euro allocated to the authority for the next five years.

The group also said the pilot schemes, following the Swedish ‘two-plus-one’ lanes, to reduce road fatalities will be introduced over the next two years.

The motorway provides for one lane on both sides with a middle lane which allows traffic from both directions to overtake at alternate times.

There will be four pilot schemes carried out in Cork, Leitrim, Monaghan and Donegal over the next two years.

“It may be possible to use 850 kilometres of roads throughout the country,” he said.

“You could save 50 lives a year by using the two-plus-one type.

“There will be a crash barrier dividing the two flows and eliminating the risk of head-on collisions. As 37 per cent of fatalities on roads are head-on collisions.

“With the motorway dual carriageway and the two-plus-one we could save about 100 lives a year.”