Lots going on right now, with the EU laying down final warnings to the
Fianna Fail led government regarding the M3 development at Tara.

Stiof

First instalment:




Last Updated: 12/07/2007 16:06
No M3 re-routing despite EU warning
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0712/breaking31.htm

Clodagh Mulvey

Campaigners against the current route of the M3 motorway near the Hill
of Tara will picket a number of international Irish embassies and Dáil
Eireann tomorrow in protest at the Government's response to a European
Commission warning over the legality of aspects of the project.

Members of Tarawatch will picket at noon (local times) in London, New
York, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, while local protesters will
begin gathering at Leinster House at 11am.

A protest march will also be held in Dublin on Saturday, July 21st at
1pm, which will go from the Garden of Remembrance to Custom House, the
headquarters of the Department of the Environment.

Campaigners have said they are "inflamed" by what they describe as the
Green Party's election pact with Fianna Fáil to agree to the M3
motorway project and today's announcement by Environment Minister John
Gormley that the Government will not re-route the road despite Euopean
criticism.

Earlier today the Government said it will not re-route the M3 despite
an official warning from the European Commission that it is in breach
of European law in relation to the planning of the controversial road.

This morning Minister for the Environment John Gormley said he did not
have the power to undo the last-minute decision taken by predecessor
Dick Roche to sign an order which permits the road works to proceed.

But Irish MEP Kathy Sinnott has called on the Government to re-route
the M3, saying the legal breach now makes it possible for the Minister
to do so.

She said Mr Gormley "can and must" re-route the road, which campaigners
claim will destroy precious cultural and archaeological heritage near
the Hill of Tara site at Lismullen, Co Meath.

Speaking on RTÉ radio this morning Mr Gormley said his department had
received a 20-page document from the European Commission last week
outlining the legal breach, which he claimed is "essentially about the
transposition of environmental impact assessment directives and our
failure to do that properly".

Mr Gormley said the matter had been raised with the Government
initially in 2001 and again in 2005 but said that following the legal
advice of the Attorney General he was now in a position where "unless
there was a material change of circumstances I could not revise the
decision that was made by Dick Roche".

However, Ms Sinnott said the identification of the Lismullen site as a
national monument this year constituted a material change of
circumstances and insisted the M3 Motorway project was now "illegal" as
it lacks a valid Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

"According to the European Commission a material change has occurred in
the shape of the monument at Lismullin, which was not taken into
account in the Environmental Impact Assessment conducted in 2003," she
said.

"This assessment was on the basis that no national monument lay in the
path of the road. The discovery and identification of Lismullin as a
national monument this year represents a definite change in
circumstance that could not have been taken into account at the time of
the 2003 EIA," she added.

Today Mr Gormley said he was taking the EU warning "very seriously
indeed" and would travel tomorrow to Brussels to discuss the matter
with the European Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas.

Responding to Ms Sinnott's calls to re-route the M3 Motorway, Mr
Gormely said: "I don't have the power to re-route the entire M3 . . . I
can only deal with the powers that I have, and what I intend to do is
to speak to Commissioner Dimas tomorrow".

Darren Delahunty, one of the London group organisers, said: "Irish
people in the UK are outraged at the refusal of the Irish authorities
to try and proceed with the road, even when the public are so against
it, and the EU have stated it is illegal.

"Since the Irish abroad could not vote in the Irish elections, we are
making our views known to our Government in the only way we can," he
said of the planned picket.