Tara campaigners appeal at EU
level
By - Jamie Smyth in Brussels.
CAMPAIGNERS AGAINST the planned M3 motorway at Tara told
MEPs yesterday that the Government had behaved like the
Taliban by destroying Ireland's cultural heritage.
They called on the European Parliament and European
Commission to ask the Government to review the impact of
the M3 on Tara's landscape and to carry out an
independent inquiry into the construction of the
motorway.
"In the past 2½ years we have witnessed the steady
destruction of this uniquely important landscape - a
destruction akin to the Taliban's destruction of
Afghanistan's cultural heritage", said Julitta Clancy,
former president of the Meath Archaeological and
Historical Society, in her submission to the parliament's
petitions committee. "We have also witnessed the further
destruction caused to numerous new archaeological sites
and complexes around Tara".
However, a request for the commission to intervene to
prevent the completion of the M3 was rejected. Commission
official Liam Cashman said it did not have the power to
request interim measures from the European Court of
Justice (ECJ) to protect archaeological sites. "There is
no substantive protection for archaeological sites as
there is for nature sites under European legislation",
said Mr Cashman.
He also revealed that the commission had not yet
submitted a legal case against the Republic to the ECJ
over its failure to implement EU law governing
environmental impact statements. He said it would make an
application to the ECJ within a few months.
© The Irish Times, 2nd. April 2008.
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