Hill of Tara / M3 Dail Protest Today

dublin | environment | press release

Tuesday February 01, 2005 11:10

by PRO - Save Tara Skryne Valley Group

savetaraskreen at yahoogroups dot com

087-132-3365

‘Protest Outside Dail Today Against Transport Committee Decision to Exclude Group’

A protest will be held outside the Dail today at 2.30PM (Kildare St) to highlight procedural irregularities in the Transport Committee’s handling of the M3 / Hill of Tara issue.

PRESS RELEASE

SAVE TARA SKRYNE VALLEY GROUP

01.02.05

While some groups will give evidence today, the only group that is threatening legal action in this matter, Save Tara Skryne Valley Group, (STSV) has been denied an opportunity to make a presentation today because their submission ‘did not deal with transport’.

STSV also assisted individual over 2,000 members of the public, inlcuding Ronnie Drew, Liam O Maonlai, David Kitt, and Kila in making submissions to the Committee, before the advertised deadline, but many never received any response.

Some procedural irregularities in the Transport Committee handling of the issue include:

1. Advertising the invitation just before Christmas, with a January 12 deadline for letters of interest.
2. Committee responses to letters of interest gave the public three working days to make a full submission.
3. Many of the 2,000 letters of interest never received any response (the Clerk admits they are still dealing with them).
4. The email address of Pat Timmins was not operating the day of the deadline for submissions.
5. Certain groups who made submissions were accused of going ‘beyond the terms of reference’.

STSV was to present an alternative transport plan today for the Meath region, which would have saved Tara and allowed for immediate commuter relief.

Vincent Salafia, Public Relations Officer, said:

“Legal action on the Hill of Tara issue could bring the entire roadbuilding program to a halt, if the National monuments Act (2004) is held to be unconstitutional.

“The Transport Committee hearings on the Hill of Tara / M3 are a farce since they decided this is not relevant to transport issues. It has managed to exclude the public entirely from what is supposed to be a public process and making it appear that it met the minimum due process requirements, in order to gain favour in upcoming Court battles.

“We participated in the public process, as invited, in good faith. We made a submission and a presentation to the Environment Committee, but the Transport Committee clearly does not want to confront the core transport issues in this case.

“We had hoped to avoid litigation, and another Carrickmines scenario, but this does not look promising.

ENDS

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Comments (5 of 5)

Some thoughts...

by anarchaeologist

Fri Feb 04, 2005 08:35

The non-appearance of the Director of the National Museum, Pat Wallace and the Senior Archaeologist of the National Monuments Service, Brian Duffy at the Oireachtas sub-committee on the M3 further demonstrates the lenghts this government is going to push the road through Tara-Screen.

However, this particular exercise in gagging appears to have backfired. While Duffy fits the typical acquiescent civil servant mould and is quite unwilling to stick his head above the parapet, Wallace is made of sterner stuff entirely.

His decision to go public has ensured that his opinions on the matter have received much more coverage in the corporate meeja than they would had he appeared in person. How much coverage for example did the Heritage Council's measured submission get on RTE? Fuck all.

The attitude of the archaeological community to the whole thing has been quite interesting. There were 4 out of about 300? licensed archaeologists (i.e. those who actually direct archaeological excavations) spotted at the recent protest in Dublin, indicating something of a lack of interest in that particular community. Neither, for that matter, did there appear to be lots of diggers on the demo (those who actually do the work on sites, and presumably those along the proposed M3).

While most archaeologists of my acquaintance are rightly agin the government/NRA-preferred route, few are willing to discuss it openly or indeed go public in their opposition. Perhaps some of us see that roads schemes, such as the proposed M3, will keep us in work for many years to come, allowing us to keep our heads literally buried in the sand, while our landscape is being destroyed around us in hommage to the internal combustion engine.

Pat Wallace was there at Wood Quay, when most of today's archaeological community were still in their nappies. It's about time the country's archaeologists grew up and decided which particular side of the fence they're on.

pd voting

by j

Thu Feb 03, 2005 14:13

The pd's website has a poll on this. Its been stuck on 70% against rerouting since the day it came on-line. Not a movement.

Tara campaigners brand Oireachtas committee 'sham'

by Tara Skryne

Wed Feb 02, 2005 15:33

Tara campaigners brand Oireachtas committee 'sham'
http://irishexaminer.12hs.com/en_US/newsfeed/story.jhtml?s=54911615&r=1493&i=4571511&d=38143681

Campaigners have accused the Oireachtas transport committee of ignoring 2,000 submissions from the public opposing plans to build a motorway near the Hill of Tara in Co Meath.

The Save Tara-Skryne Valley group said it had delivered the letters to the committee following an advertisement seeking the views of the public.

Teamhair agus eile

by Duine

Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:17

Ní ceart ár n-oidhreacht a dhíol ar mhaithe le tráchtáil. Is le lucht gustail tráchtáil ach is linne ar fad ár n-oidhreacht.
Tá sé in am dúinn "Breast an gadaí" a rá le lucht gustail

Photos from Protest

by redjade

Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:08

see http://TaraSkryne.org for more details and info

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Hill of Tara / M3 Dail Protest Today

Comments (5 of 5)