Neglecting Heritage?

EU funding has played a significant role in Ireland's impressive economic development over the past decades. Money from EU cohesion funds was especially needed to improve the country's once poor road infrastructure.

But a stretch of the M50 motorway near Dublin, completed two years ago and earmarked for EU funding, has enraged preservationists.

"What we're seeing there is major roadwork that has been built on top of a medieval castle site," historian David Edwards said. "Right underneath that roundabout are the excavated remains of Carrickmines Castle."

Edwards said the castle was unparalleled in European history as the last stance of the Catholic Irish against the Protestant British in the 16th century Irish confederate wars.

"Any of us who knew anything about Carrickmines in the age of religious wars knew that it was a big site," Edwards said. "The excavations proved that it was even larger than we thought it was. And now, here is a big load of tarmac and concrete on top of the excavated site."

Did the EU review all of the necessary information?

This road development, like most others in Ireland, benefited from EU cohesion funds totaling 74 million Euros ($93.9 million). But this project is the only one so far that has proved controversial enough for the European Commission to get cold feet.

When campaigners failed to stop the project in Irish courts, Labor MEP Pronsias de Rossa brought the Carrickmines Castle case to Brussels. He agreed with the campaigners, who accused the Irish government of doing a careless job with their environmental impact assessment -- or EIA -- before giving the go-ahead for the new motorway. De Rossa made a formal complaint to the European Union.

"The basis of the complaint was that the EIA had been improperly prepared and that available information had not been incorporated in the study," de Rossa said. He asked the European Commission to review the allocation of cohesion funding to the project, unless the Irish state rectified the failure and protected the archaeological heritage that had been found.

Due to the complexity of the issue, the Commission appointed an expert to examine the file.

"It was found that information that was available had not been incorporated," de Rossa said. "The view of the Commission ultimately, however, was that it was not sufficiently serious to warrant legal action."

Commission says EU rules are thorough

The Commission, however, did signal that they were unhappy with the way the government had handled the case -- by reallocating some of the funding for the M50 motorway to other Irish road projects. In the end, though, the Irish government did not lose out financially.

Ruth Deasy, the EU Commission spokesperson in Dublin, said she agreed the Carrickmines controversy was unfortunate. But, she said the rules governing which projects get cohesion funds are sound.

"It's not a question of telling national authorities what policies to apply," Deasy said. "It's simply that there are rules for accessing funding, and if the rules are not respected, then the ultimate penalty is you can't access that funding. I think that is fair enough and clear for everybody."

EU should do more to protect heritage

The Commission said it believed a similar case to Carrickmines could not happen today, because the system now worked better. But MEP de Rossa said he had pressed the Commission at the time to bring forward stronger protection for archaeology and heritage historical sites. He said Margot Wallström, the Commissioner responsible at the time, promised she would do that.

"Regrettably still to this day they have not issued new guidance as to how member states should apply the requirement that is there to protect heritage and archaeology," de Rossa said.

The M50 has been built; the money from the EU has been spent. So what of future projects? After all, potential national heritage sites are scattered all over this historic bit of Europe, and a national development plan means plenty more motorways will be built. Historian Edwards isn't optimistic and said he feared for other historical sites.

"The people who've campaigned for years now over Carrickmines Castle are now campaigning over Tara, over Woodstown Viking settlements in Waterford, over Trym Castle and over the Ocram battle site," Edwards said.

He said the fact that these projects are mainly funded by EU cohesion funds was shortchanging taxpayers.

"I feel that European taxpayers are being taken to the cleaners by Irish businessmen, builders and developers," Edwards said. "You're getting very bad value for taxpayers' money."