Election rumblings on
M3
Dear sir - It is time someone put Meath County Council
chairperson Colr. Tommy Reilly (and others) straight
about the Hill of Tara before election rumblings about
pots and pans lead us to a place where we will damage our
souls and disregard the thing that makes us Irish.
As a driving instructor who works in the Dublin area, I
know more than most the need for the new M3 and as a
taxpayer I demand it. The need for an M3 has come about
because of the mismanagement of public finances and
infrastructure and the failure to bypass Dunshaughlin,
Navan and Kells years ago.
As chair of Navan and Meath councils Colr. Reilly failed
to secure money even to do a feasibility study for a
rail-line. The politicians instead choose to buy
elections with give-away budgets and now Colr. Reilly is
prepared to sell our national heritage to gain a
by-election seat. We must see through hollow drum-bashing
in the form of electioneering before the country really
starts believing black is white.
Why build the motorway through the Tara-Skryne Valley?
The time needed to secure this site would see my lifetime
come to an end before its completion.
Colr. Reilly sees nothing wrong with this, despite the
fact that we need the motorway now. Instead he chooses to
delay the road by picking a row with people who fight the
case for putting it in this valley (not the need for it,
which is undisputed), which is likely to end with the
case in the highest courts in Europe.
Political leaders such as O'Connell and Parnell
recognised the importance of this site and addressed
rallies of over a million people there and if left alone
it may continue to attract visitors to spend their euro
here.
Colr. Reilly now dismisses such history as being of no
importance and the thousands in taxpayers' money spent
marketing the beauty and importance of this valley are in
danger of being wasted.
Tara has attracted the brave to her defence for thousands
of years and in the words of a famous Meath poem
referring to the 1798 rising "and in Meath's fair county
still there are brave men not a few who will follow in
the footsteps of young Paudge O'Donoughue".
O'Donoughue died at Tara in defence of his human rights.
206 years later we motoring, tax-paying citizens demand
ours - a new road in our lifetimes. So move it and get on
with it!
Yours sincerely,
PATRICK PRYLE,
Oberstown,
Tara
© The Meath Chronicle, 25th. December, 2004.
