The Green Party has launched a petition calling for the Finance Minister to ensure a 5,000 acre site in the Dublin Mountains at Glenasmole Valley is not sold off by NAMA and will remain in State ownership.

Minister Michael Noonan is being urged to come to an arrangement with the National Parks and Wildlife Service to ensure the lands are not sold.

Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan TD said: "This area is one of the most spectacular places in this country, which matches anything anywhere else in its beauty. It is a stunning wilderness. There is nothing there - not a shed and hardly a fence. The valley is surrounded by 20,000 hectares of the Wicklow National Park, which could now be extended into the Dublin Uplands if the State can hold onto this land.

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"NAMA has put this site up for sale but it is not too late to stop the process. Selling it makes no sense. It has absolutely no development potential as 93% of the land is designated as a Strategic Area of Conservation. The best use of the land is to keep it as a commonage and wildlife reserve.

"The National Parks and Wildlife Service have already been in talks with NAMA with a view to taking over the land but they were unable to come to a final agreement. Given that the State would be on either side of the deal it beggars belief that the land will be sold off because they were unable to agree a price.

"This is a once in a lifetime chance to protect a large area of the Dublin Mountains for the hundreds of thousands of walkers and nature lovers who value the uplands as one of the great things about our capital city."

(CD/MH)