Fresh legal bid
- to save Hill of Tara
By - Orla Fitzsimmons.
Environmentalists mounted a new legal challenge yesterday
to force the State to halt work on a multi-million-euro
motorway through the ancient Hill of Tara.
Summonses were served on the Government, the National
Roads Authority and tolling contractor Eurolink by the
Campaign to Save Tara group, which was supported by poet
Seamus Heaney, MEP Kathy Sinnott and Sinn
Féin.
It comes a week after An Bord Pleanála ruled the
M3 could be built over 2000-year-old newly discovered
ruins at Lismullin, about 2km from the Tara Hill. Michael
Canney, of Campaign to Save Tara, said the courts
challenge was taken as a last resort. "It has never been
my ambition to put my name forward in a legal challenge
against such a seemingly impregnable array of political
and economic forces", he said.
"I have done so only as a last resort and only because it
is absolutely essential that the silent majority who
oppose this road are given a final chance to voice their
concerns before the courts". Protesters want a High Court
ruling halting construction on the project pending the
outcome of a case before the European Court of Justice
over the Lismullin national monument.
Mr. Canney added that Environment Minister John Gormley
had failed in his duty to protect the country's national
heritage.
An Bord Pleanála had been examining whether the
discovery last April of the ceremonial structure in the
motorway's path would require a new planning
application.
It ruled the find did not constitute a material
alteration to the approved M3 scheme, and gave the
project the green light.
At yesterday's launch in Dublin of the latest strategy to
Save Tara, campaigner Dr. Muireann Ní
Bhrolcháin read out a statement of support from
Derry poet Mr. Heaney. "It could be said that the
Campaign to Save Tara is putting its case in the name of
dead generations", he wrote.
"For the past two millennia, those generations regarded
Tara as a place invested with sacred, as opposed to
secular value".
"Protest against the loss of this value remains an
imperative".
© Metro, 30th. August 2007.
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challenge.
Save Tara launches new court challenge.
M3 alternative unveiled as new court bid begins.
Fresh
Legal challenge to M3 announced - CtST Statement.
Save
Tara/M3 Legal Case - Statement - Michael Canney.
