Hill of Tara / M3 Dail Protest Today

‘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