Press Release. Eamon Gilmore TD,
Labour Spokesperson on Environment & Local Government,
19th. June 2007.

Gormley urged to publish legal advice on M3 decision

The Labour Party Spokesperson on the Environment, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, has challenged the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, to publish any advice he has received from the Attorney General suggesting that he has no power to overturn the controversial order made by his predecessor, Dick Roche, permitting the destruction of a national monument on the route of the M3 at Lismullin, Co Meath.

Indeed it is not at all clear that Mr. Gormley ever actually received a written opinion from the Attorney General as the statement he issued last week justifying his decision not to overturn Mr. Roche's decision referred only to having "consulted with the Office of the Attorney General". However, one would have thought that on an issue of such importance a formal written opinion would be required.

John Gormley's statement on the Lismullin case confines itself to setting out reasons in favour of an argument that Dick Roche was correct to authorise the excavation and subsequent destruction of the national monument there. He may or may not be correct in that opinion but it is clearly not the opinion shared by a great many Green Party members, environmental activists and others concerned with our archaeological heritage.

An opinion that Dick Roche's decision can be justified on policy grounds is not at all the same thing as an opinion that, as a matter of law, his decision is written in stone and cannot be reversed or amended.

There is nothing in the statement that justifies the argument that Minister Gormley is legally bound by the decision of his predecessor. John Gormley clearly arrived at this view before he consulted the Attorney General, rather than receiving it from him.

The idea that the decision on Lismullin was a "quasi-judicial" one is misconceived and seems designed to confuse and distract from the real issue. If a quasi-judicial function was being performed, there would have had to have been a hearing, with an obligation to hear arguments both for and against destruction at Lismullin, before the decision was made. In fact there was no such hearing - because it was not a quasi-judicial process at all.

The reality is that each Government Minister is not only entitled but obliged to bring his or her own policies, principles and mandate to bear on decisions made in office. And that Minister Gormley chose not to do so.

Instead, his press statement bundles together two separate issues - whether he could change the decision and whether he should change the decision - so that he can get away with not answering one very basic question: would he have made the same decision as Dick Roche if the Lismullin case had been left to him?

Finally, the Minister lamely concludes that there has been no "change in material circumstances" to justify his intervention - in other words, that his own appointment to ministerial office, with responsibility for protecting our national heritage, is an irrelevant consideration and has changed nothing at all.

This is a matter of such importance that the public is entitled to see whatever legal advice, if any, was available to Minister Gormley, when he decided not to take any action to overturn the order made by Dick Roche.