Bribery claims hit Irish motorway plan

A British property company entangled in Ireland's burgeoning political bribes scandal will tomorrow demand €118m (£74m) in compensation for land which stands in the path of Dublin's new motorway.

Along with the empty hillside in question – about to be swallowed up by the motorway – is an important medieval archaeological dig.

Carrickmines Castle, known to medieval historians as "Ireland's Pompeii" for the richness of its artefacts, is on the point of disappearing under the advancing road.

Yesterday a group of conservationists, who call themselves the Carrickminders, succeeded in stopping several 35 ton diggers and bulldozers from entering the site. They maintain that the €600m motorway's route was moved at the planning stage, to cross the castle's site and an interchange junction added to give access to a proposed housing development owned by the British registered company, Jackson Way Properties.

Because the motorway will cross land re-zoned for housing, which gives it a much higher value, Jackson Way are claiming €118m compensation.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown county council wants the compensation to be based on the agricultural value of the 22 acre site, rather than the much higher residential zoning value.

Carrickmines Castle was part of the southern defences of the Anglo-Norman colony in Dublin. From 1200 to 1642 it was used by colonists as a cavalry base for attacking the Irish tribes in the Wicklow Mountains. It was eventually destroyed in 1642. Archaeologists recently uncovered a medieval garrison settlement in a remarkable state of preservation, declaring it to be one of the largest rural medieval pottery finds in the country. A vast array of other small finds have been recovered, including cannon balls, coins, tiles and weapons.Human remains have also been found.

The only structure remaining is a small, ruined gate-house, which the county council now proposes to keep.

The existence of the Carrickmines ruin was well known to historians and archaeologists but its importance was brushed aside in the Environmental Impact Statement for the motorway required under EU regulations.

Archaeologists were evicted from the site last month to make way for the interchange junction. At an arbitration hearing in Dun Laoghaire tomorrow, legal representatives of Jackson Way will press their demands for €118m compensation for about 22 acres of land near Carrickmines castle.

The land was originally bought for €685,000 in the 1980s. It was then controversially rezoned for residential development before being compulsorily acquired for the motorway.

The Flood tribunal, which is investigating political corruption in the 1990s, issued an interim report last week implicating a former Foreign Minister Ray Burke in a corruption scandal from which criminal charges are expected to follow. The tribunal will now turn its attention to allegations that bribes were paid to have the Carrickmines land re-zoned.

Ownership of the site is cloaked in mystery. Jackson Way is a shell company vested in offshore holding companies. The company is under investigation by Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau.

"This is the effect of modern Ireland disappearing under concrete," said Paul Cullen, the author of With a Little Help From My Friends, which details the scale of Irish political corruption. "The money trail is such that we are still a long way from understanding what's really going on behind the scenes."

It has already been established that a London-based building contractor, Tom Gilmartin, handed £50,000 to the former Environment minister and EU commissioner Padraig Flynn as a donation.

Mr Flynn maintains that public administration had never been compromised by anything he did. Mr Flynn now says he will do anything he can to assist the official investigation. He is expected to give evidence about the donation from Mr Gilmartin.

The controversy goes to the heart of the widening corruption scandal swirling around the government of Prime Minister Albert Reynolds. Opposition parties are demanding answers in the Dail to allegations that a minister in Mr Ahern's cabinet took an €101,600 bribe from a businessman.

"If the scale of corruption city-wide by public officials was truly known, there would be public riots," said a Dublin campaigner.