Dear Madam, - More information has emerged concerning the Drumclay crannog fiasco. A large number of archaeologists were horrified about what happened. They questioned the DRD and the DOE and received some responses which they raised in broadcast media interviews, posted on the internet, and published in learned journals.

These are the undisputed points. (1) The road constructors had employed an archaeologist ostensible to prevent or mitigate any damage to archaeology, before and during the building of the road. (2) The crannog had been recorded for decades by the DOE, whose Planning Service gave the green light to the route of the road (3) By March 2011 the road had crashed through the crannog and only then did anyone raise the alarm.

After this disaster, the DRD released a raft of statements, 6 March 2013, in response to questions posed by independent archaeologists under the terms of the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR). We are informed that the constructors’ archaeologist was licenced by the DOE to locate the crannog on 17 December 2010. Following this, this archaeologist “inspected the site and was unable to identify the location of a crannog”, said a statement.

However an independent archaeologist enquired into the matter, and in an article published in the journal British Archaeology, November/December, 2012, he states that he had received a report dated 10 March 2011 written by the constructors’ archaeologist. In this the latter stated that over 16 days in January 2011 he had found the crannog, that it measured 17m by 14.5m, and that he dug an exploratory trench 3m by 3m, 60cm deep, close to its centre, and found complex structural elements and artefacts, well preserved.

The independent archaeologists then put this revelation to the DRD. The DRD responded as follows. “Nothing of any significance was unearthed.” This too was published in British Archaeology.

The DRD’s EIR statements emphasised that the DOE was the “lead authority” during this fiasco. DRD also stated that the DOE were “better placed to define” what went wrong.

What went wrong was the well-publicised waste of several millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Alex Attwood was the DOE’s Minister at the time, and was rightly concerned. He officially commissioned Professor Gabriel Cooney, around July 2012, to provide him with the answers. This confirmed that the DOE was indeed the leading authority. An independent archaeologist wrote to the professor, and in a reply dated 13 March 2014 the professor stated that his report was with the Minister, and the Minister had given him to understand that it would be published in full “shortly”.

Could the present DOE Minister, Mark H Durkan, now publish Professor Cooney’s report? We paid for it.

Yours faithfully, Frederick Carroll 66 Irvinestown Road, Enniskillen