06.04.10
Posted in News at 6:04 pm by Vincent
TV3 News – M3 motorway opens in Meath
RTE News – Controversial M3 opens ahead of schedule
Irish Times – M3 motorway officially opens
Irish Examiner – Tóibín attacks construction of ‘shameful’ M3
Irish Independent - Toibin condemns M3 in Co Meath
Press Association, (UK) – Toibin condemns M3 in Co Meath
Meath motorway officially opens
The Irish Times – Breaking News – 4 June 2010
RONAN McGREEVY in Navan
The new M3, the biggest and most controversial road project in the history of the State, was opened this morning. Protesters were kept well back from the ribbon-cutting ceremony which was carried out on a stretch of the motorway between Navan and the Athboy interchange.
The tolled motorway will bypass Dunshaughlin, Kells and Navan, which have been three of the worst bottlenecks in Ireland for decades. Along with 60km of motorway, there will be 35km of side roads, 15km of link roads and a four kilometre N52 bypass of Kells.Security was tight for the opening and it was by invitation-only.
Protesters were allowed no further than the Athboy interchange which is about two kilometres from where the opening took place. The guests included representatives from the Spanish-based company Ferrovial who were one of the companies involved in the construction. There were also Garda checkpoints at the entrance to the opening ceremony, and a Garda helicopter monitored the movement of protesters from above. The M3 which will connect Clonee to near the Cavan-Meath border has been dogged by controversy since it was first proposed in 1997.
Campaigners fought a long and ultimately fruitless battle to stop a section of the motorway being built near the Hill of Tara, but the Government argued that the new motorway was actually further away from the hill than the existing N3. Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said it was a historic day for a county steeped in history. The Meath TD said the people of Dunshauglin, Navan and Kells will now get their town back and his only regret was that the motorway had not been built sooner. The chairman of Meath County Council, Cllr William Carey, said he understood that some people were upset that important archaeological remains were disturbed, but he was convinced that the least intrusive route was taken.
Irish writer Colm Tóibín said the desecration of the landscape around Tara was shameful, short-sighted and beyond belief. “In a time when Ireland needs places which have a sacred aura and a special beauty more than ever, it is sad to see those who have misruled our country ganging up on our heritage,” he said.
Vincent Salafia, of TaraWatch, said activists have been completely vindicated in their campaign against the route of this road. “The majority of Irish people, including most of our leading artists, as well as the EU and the major international archaeological bodies, have condemned it.The same reckless disregard for ethics, rights and regulation that brought down the economy, was employed to bulldoze this road through,” he said. The motorway opened to traffic at 4pm today. There are tolls at Dunshaughlin and Clonee and one at Grange between Navan and Kells. The cost will be 1.30 for each toll.
Register on Facebook for Summer Solstice Celebrations on Tara
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Posted in European Union, News, Tolls, unesco at 7:30 am by Vincent
PRESS RELEASE- TARAWATCH
04 June 2010 ‘
Colm Tóibín Joins Condemnation of M3 Motorway
Leading Irish writers, Colm Tóibín, yesterday condemned the construction of the M3 motorway, through the Hill of Tara landscape and archaeological complex. He has joined the long list of celebrities and artists, including Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Louis le Brocquy, Jim Fitzpatrick, Robert Ballagh, and the Chieftains, who have condemned the M3 motorway, along with arts group Aosdána. Speaking from Kerry where he is Chairman of the Listowel Writer’s Week Mr. Tóibín said:
“The desecration of the landscape around Tara is shameful, short-sighted and beyond belief. In a time when Ireland needs places which have a sacred aura and a special beauty more than ever, it is sad to see those who have misruled our country ganging up on our heritage.’
His words echo those of Seamus Heaney, who told BBC in March 2008: “If ever there was a place that deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead generations from pre-historic times up to historic times up to completely recently – it was Tara.” He called the M3 a “ruthless desecration”, and said: “I think it literally desecrates an area – I mean the word means to de-sacralise and for centuries the Tara landscape and the Tara sites have been regarded as part of the sacred ground.”
While the M3 motorway is opening today, the controversy will continue for years to come:
- The European Commission is currently taking a case against Ireland, in the European Court of Justice, for breach of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, due to the decision of Dick Roche to demolish the Lismullin national monument, in Tara.
- Tara is being nominated to UNESCO to be a World Heritage Site, this July. Professor George Eogan, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at UCD has said it is likely that UNESCO will not be pleased that a motorway has been just opened in the middle of the very site they are being asked to protect.
- Tara was placed on the List of 100 Most Endangered Sites by the World Monuments Fund (WMF) in 2006, and other international organisations, such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), Sacred Sites International, and the World Archaeological Congress (WAC).
- The Heritage Council is piloting the Tara Skryne Landscape Conservation Area, which covers a large area around Tara, and will place planning restrictions on both sides of the motorway. which are being challenged by local Fianna Fail councillors. Public consultation ends Wed 16 June.
- Finally, a human rights complaint is being prepared for the UN, which will detail the the litany of human rights abuses that have facilitated the construction of the M3.
Matt Schwoebel head of the 2048 Project at University of Berkeley law school, California, who was detained by Immigration officials at Dublin Airport and sent back to the US last November, said yesterday: “The human right to heritage sites of particular historical and religious significance is recognized in international law.
“These special places are inextricably connected to how people define themselves as communities and families. “The response by the government and police forces to the concerns of people raised during the protests are also of particular concern, and should be rectified accordingly.” The complaint will be presented to the UN and UNESCO this summer.
Vincent Salafia of TaraWatch said: “We have been completely vindicated in our campaign against the route of this road. The majority of Irish people, including most of our leading artists, as well as the EU and the major international archaeological bodies, have condemned it.
“The same reckless disregard for ethics, rights and regulation that brought down the economy, was employed to bulldoze this road through.
“The real kicker is yet to come, when traffic levels will show that the taxpayer will start paying millions of euros every year to the toll company, because of traffic fails to meet the traffic guarantee which was secretly written into the M3 contract by the NRA.
ENDS Contact: Vincent Salafia 085-192-7032 / Laura Grealish 087-972-8603
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06.01.10
Posted in News, Tolls, Transport at 12:59 am by Vincent
Group critical of M3 traffic use
The Irish Times - Tuesday, June 1, 2010
A group which opposed the construction of the M3 road has said the taxpayer is facing a bill of €1.3 million per annum because insufficient traffic will use the new motorway. The 61 kilometre M3 officially opens on Friday but Tara Watch spokesman Vincent Salafia said revenue from two tolls on the road scheme will not meet income targets. Tara Watch says the NRA through the taxpayer expects to pay Eurolink a minimum of €1.3 million in the first year due to a predicted 3,250 vehicle a day shortfall.
PRESS RELEASE – TARAWATCH
31 May 2010
NRA Expects to Pay Millions in Shadow Tolls to M3 Toll Company from Opening Day
The National Roads Authority (NRA) expects the M3 motorway to lose money, from the very first day of opening, 4 June. Taxpayers will spend millions in ’shadow tolls’ or direct payments to the Public Private Partner (PPP), Eurolink (SIAC & Ferrovial) due to a confidential ‘˜minimum traffic guarantee’ in the 45 year contract.
According to the NRA’s own figures the M3 will, “on opening”, have traffic volume of “approximately 22,000 vehicles daily”, which is 3,500 vehicles below the NRA’s threshold for shadow tolls of 25,250. Fred Barry, Chief Executive Officer of the NRA, revealed that the threshold for shadow tolling is 25,250 vehicles a day at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport on“ 18 November 2009, saying:
“The level of traffic guarantee set out in the PPP contract for the initial year of operation is a combined total for the two plazas of 25,250 vehicles per day. If the traffic levels are 25,000 and the debt level thresholds are contravened, the concessionaire would receive an additional payment of approximately €100,000. If the traffic levels are 35,000 no additional payment arises.”
This means that the NRA expects to pay Eurolink a minimum of €1.3 mil, in the first year of operation, due to the predicted 3,250 vehicle a day shortfall, adding up to approximately €60 mil over the life of the contract. This could rise significantly if traffic levels do not reach 22,000. TaraWatch is predicting that traffic levels will be 10,000 – 15,000, meaning a total cost of approximately €180-240 mil, over the 45 yr life of the contract, based on a number of factors:
1. Current traffic volumes on the existing N3, which will remain open and free, were between approximately 14,000 and 16,000 last year, according to the NRA traffic counter statistics.
2. HGVs will avoid M3 tolls, by using the existing road, as was indicated by the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) in a statement on Wed, 26 May.
3. The M3 will have low cross-border through traffic, as is ends in Virgina, Co. Cavan.
4. Meath has been the hardest hit county in terms of job losses, due to the recession.
Vincent Salafia of TaraWatch said:
“Our campaign has been completely vindicated. Not only is the European Commission taking legal action against Ireland, which could result in massive fines for illegally demolishing national monuments at the Hill of Tara, but the road is an economic black hole for the taxpayer.
“The Government knew the M3 was economically non-viable, which is why they got special permission from the European Commission for shadow tolling, without informing the public. This is actually triple-taxation, when you add it on top of road tolls and vehicle tax, for a road that completely unnecessary, since it is only 5 miles from the proposed M2. The NRA has conceded that it is not a matter of ‘if’ the M3 will lose money; it is a question of ‘how much?’.
ENDS
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05.22.10
Posted in Events, News at 9:54 pm by Vincent
TaraWatch calls on you to join poets, musicians and revellers at the annual Summer Solstice celebrations on the Hill of Tara, beginning on Sunday, 20 June. Festivities begin at noon and run all through the night, until sunrise on Monday, the 21st. If you are an artist, and want to participate, please contact us at info@tarawatch.org You can also register for this event on Facebook, receive updates, and help us promote it.
We will have some special guests, including Hope Ebsworth, a leader of the Wangkumarra people in Queensland, Australia. He has written a book and written a book Bury me at Tartulla Hill, and is travelling to Tara to highlight the plight of his people. Wangkumarra land is at the juncture of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. Since 2001, Wangkumarra people have received an annual payment of $60,000 in compensation for Santos’ destructive mining and exploration activity on their land. This is a pretty good deal for Santos, who rip half a billion dollars worth of oil and gas out of the land every year.
This years celebration at Tara will be a more sombre affair, as the M3 motorway will have opened on 4 June. However, we will continue to lobby for the protection of Tara, against future developments, and highlight the Government’s ongoing mistreatment of Irish heritage, such as the N2 Slane bypass at Bru na Boinne World Heritage Site. An information session on the proposed Tara Skryne Landscape Protection Area, and the nomination of the Hill of Tara to be a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Tara is the most beautiful place in Ireland to experience the solstice, so please come and join us.
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05.13.10
Posted in Archaeology, Events, Historical Importance of Tara, News at 12:17 am by Vincent
[click map to enlarge]
PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT ACT 2000
NOTICE OF THE PREPARATION
OF A DRAFT LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION AREA
FOR TARA SKRYNE
Notice is hereby given pursuant to Section 204 (4) of the Planning and Development Act, 2000 that Meath County Council has prepared a Draft Landscape Conservation Area for Tara Skryne.
The Draft Landscape Conservation Area comprises of a written statement and a boundary map. A copy of the Draft Landscape Conservation Area will be available for public inspection at the following locations from Tuesday 4th May 2010 to Wednesday 16th June 2010 during normal office hours:
• Planning Office, Abbey Mall, Abbey rd, Navan, Co. Meath;
• Navan Town Council, Watergate St, Navan;
• Navan Library, Railway St, Navan.
• Dunshaughlin Area Office, Drumree rd, Dunshaughlin
• http://www.meath.ie.
Copies of the Draft Landscape Conservation Area are available for purchase from the Planning Planning Department, Abbey Mall, Abbey Rd, Navan, Co. Meath. Please contact Lynda Thornton @ 046-9097566 or lthornton@meathcoco.ie
MAKING A SUBMISSION
Meath County Council hereby invites any interested parties to make submissions in respect of the Draft Landscape Conservation Area to the undersigned before 3.30 pm on Wednesday 16th June 2010. Any submissions or observations so made will be taken into consideration by the Council before the making of the Landscape Conservation Area for Tara Skryne. Submissions or observations in electronic format can be e-mailed to planningsubmissions@meathcoco.ie before 3.30pm on Wednesday 16th June 2010.
Reports and specific instruction are available here
Families face planning curbs under new Tara buffer zone plan
Meath Chronicle – Wednesday 12 May 2010
Proposal described as ’sop to M3 motorway protestors’
A controversial proposal to throw a large buffer zone around the Tara and Skryne area has led to claims that hundreds of acres of land across central Meath will be sterilised, providing significant obstacles for local residents applying for one-off rural housing permission. One local county councillor has said that generations of local families in an area stretching from Tara and Skryne to Kilmessan, Garlow Cross, Walterstown and Dunsany could be prevented from building homes if the Tara-Skryne Draft Landscape Conservation Plan proposed by Meath County Council, in conjunction with the Department of the Environment and The Heritage Council, is formally adopted by the local authority.
Fianna Fail Cllr Nick Killian has described the plan as “a sop to the M3 protesters by Minister John Gormley and another shot at rural living, preventing one-off rural housing. It’s a last sting from a dying wasp”. He said residents of all the areas affected, from Connell’s Cross to Walterstown, should secure a copy of the proposal from Meath County Council and fully brief themselves on the serious difficulties that this will cause for generations of local residents in providing future homes for their families.
Cllr Killian said he intends to call a public meeting to ensure that the local communities affected are fully appraised of the impact of this new conservation area. “Everyone should look at www.meath.ie and familiarise themselves with the documents which will be on public display,” he said this week. The plan set outs the categories of development which will no longer constitute exempted development (whether under Planning and Development Act, 2000, or sections 4 or the Planning and Development Regulations, 2001) within the Tara-Skryne Landscape Conservation Area.
The plan, which indicates the proposed boundaries of the landscape conservation area around Tara and Skryne, went on public display last week. There will be a six-week public display period during which time submissions can be made. The draft landscape conservation order will be proposed for adoption by the members of the council at their July meeting. The order will enable the planning authority to de-exempt certain development which would otherwise constitute exempted development. This means that certain categories of development which do not normally require planning permission will do so now. The consultation document says that this does not mean that permission will not be granted, but rather people will be required to apply for planning permission for such developments. These proposed categories are listed in the draft order.
Planning officials and heritage staff of Meath County Council already have held information and consultation evenings with members of the public in Tara and Skryne. The purpose of the project is to recognise the significance of the area and implement the policies and objectives of the Meath County Development Plan 2007-2013. The council said it wants to promote sustainable landscape management in accordance with best practice and support the delivery of agreed environmental, economic, social and cultural heritage community initiatives. It added that there is a strong emphasis on design in the landscape plan. The deadline for receipt of submissions is Wednesday 16th June next.
At this week’s meeting of Meath County Council, Cllr Brian Fitzgerald said the difficulties posed by the proposed plan were the same as those presented by the plan for the Newgrange area. He said he would like to know what were the plan’s implications and what was proposed. He said the Department of the Environment was “running to do something like this before the M3 opens. We all want to see Tara and Skryne improved but there are widespread implications for people who have land in the area, and for people who have developments in the area as it is”. There was a “huge area” to be taken in by the plan and he wanted to know what implications there were for the sons or daughters of landowners in the ares who might want to give them sites for house-building, he said. There might be a need to compensate people who would be affected by the changes proposed by the council, he added. There was an outstanding need for the people who lived in the area to understand the implications of this plan.
Council chairman, Cllr Bill Carey, said that the plan was on display and everybody had a right to express an opinion on it if they wished. Cllr Fitzgerald said that it was the councillors themselves who would have to be informed of the implications. Cllr Jimmy Cudden said the Slane Electoral Area members would agree with what he had to say about a similar plan for the Newgrange area. He said councillors had been taken on a tour of the general Newgrange-Knowth-Dowth area and no-one could tell them where was boundary of the proposed buffer zone was. If the council was going to make a decision on the sterilising of land in the Tara-Skryne area, then he suggested the 29 members of the council should be brought and shown exactly where the boundaries of the proposed buffer zone were. “I don’t want to see happening in Tara-Skryne what happened in the Newgrange area. I don’t want to see a person who owns land in the proposed buffer zone being unable to provide a site for a house for a son or daughter,” he said. Cllr Wayne Harding said that, in regard to the Newgrange plan, it was “virtually impossible” to get planning permission inside the buffer zone. County manager Tom Dowling said the plan was something that people should be “quite excited about” because it would help the county’s economic wellbeing in the long term.
A written statement on the plan, along with a map showing the boundaries of the proposed conservation area, is on display for public inspections at the following locations until 16th June: Planning Office, Abbey Mall, Abbey Street, Navan; Navan Town Council, Watergate Street, Navan; Navan Library, Railway Street, Navan; Dunshaughlin Area Office, Drumree Road, Dunshaughlin, and at http://www.meath.ie
The council has invited interested parties to make submissions in respect of the landscape conservation plan before 3.30pm on Wednesday 16th June next. Submissions or observations made will be taken into consideration by the council before the making of the conservation area, due to be decided at its July meeting.
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04.14.10
Posted in Archaeology, Events, News, unesco at 3:32 pm by Vincent
Heritage site protection urged
Belfast Telegraph – Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Conservationists have hit out at Green Party leader John Gormley over seven shortlisted heritage sites, including the Hill of Tara
Campaigners from Save Newgrange and TaraWatch accused the Government of failing to protect Newgrange, which already has the coveted Unesco title and one of the latest nominees, Tara, the seat of the high kings of Ireland. The controversial M3 is passing just under a mile from the ancient hill, while other contentious plans have been drawn up for the N2 Slane bypass only 1,600ft from the Newgrange-Bru na Boinne complex. Vincent Salafia said: “We support the nomination of the Hill of Tara as a world heritage site, but only on condition that measures are taken to mitigate the damage caused by the M3. “The proposal for the N2 Slane Bypass is in direct contravention of Unesco’s instructions, to limit development ‘in and around’ the site. We are also going to demand that Ireland is forced to amend the National Monuments Act, since the current act does not give adequate protection for any world heritage site in Ireland.”
The Government’s “tentative” list includes Georgian Dublin, known as the Historic City of Dublin; extensive Stone Age settlements on the Ceide Fields in north-west Mayo; the Burren, Co Clare; the monastic city of Clonmacnoise; western stone forts including Dun Aonghusa in Aran; early medieval monastic sites Durrow, Glendalough, Inis Cealtra, Kells and Monasterboice and already nominated Clonmacnoise; and the royal sites such as Tara, Cashel, Dun Ailinne, Hill of Uisneach and the Rathcroghan complex. Mr Gormley, who announced the shortlist, said: “Our heritage properties are our legacy, not just in Ireland but globally.” Ireland already has three Unesco sites – the Giant’s Causeway in Co Antrim, listed in 1986; the Bru na Boinne-Newgrange complex, protected in 1993; and Skellig Michael off Co Kerry, included in 1996. In the Government’s nomination it states the royal sites, such as Tara, are “unique expressions of Irish society”.
Save Newgrange and TaraWatch plan to make presentations to Unesco officials on the roadworks around the sites when the World Heritage Committee meets from July 25-August 3 in Brasilia.
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Posted in Archaeology, News, unesco at 3:03 pm by Vincent
Irish sites seek world heritage status
The Irish Times – 14 April 2010 – FRANK McDONALD Environment Editor
The Historic City of Dublin, Royal Tara, Georgian Dublin, the Céide Fields in northwest Mayo, Dún Aonghusa in Aran, the monastic site of Clonmacnoise and the Burren in Co Clare are included on a “tentative list” of nominees to Unesco for designation as world heritage sites.
Although Cashel, Killarney National Park and Clara Bog in Co Offaly were submitted in 1992, none have yet been designated. Ireland still has only three world heritage sites: Skellig Michael, off the Kerry coast; Brú na Bóinne in Co Meath, and the Giant’s Causeway in Co Antrim.
The latest list of nominees again includes Cashel, but this time as one of “the royal sites of Ireland” along with Dún Ailinne, Co Kildare; the Hill of Uisneach, Co Westmeath; the Rathcroghan complex in Co Roscommon and the Tara complex in Co Meath, which the M3 will pass by. Though some had been affected by “erosion, agricultural and quarrying activity”, they still had “all the elements necessary to express the outstanding universal value of the royal sites” to give a “complete representation of the features and processes conveying their significance”.
Georgian Dublin has been rebranded as “the historic city of Dublin” in the submission to Unesco, made on behalf of Minister for the Environment John Gormley. It is in not only because of its architecture, but also for the city’s “extraordinary contribution to world literature”. The submission also notes that Dublin’s Wide Streets Commissioners became “Europe’s first official town planning authority” in 1757, with a remit to make wide and convenient streets through congested parts of the city “by the rational application of scientific and aesthetic principles”.
The Burren is described as “an excellent example of a landscape which represents major stages of Earth’s history”, with fossil-rich karst limestone beds still “actively evolving”, 6,000 years of human settlement and a geological record that remains “highly visible and accessible”. The Céide Fields are included as “the outstanding example of human settlement, land-use and interaction with environment in Neolithic times . . . Nowhere else is there such extensive physical remains of a Neolithic farmed landscape surviving from this significant period in prehistory”.
Dún Aonghusa is included among five western Stone Forts, the others being Cahercommaun, Caherconree, Benagh and Staigue. These represent “the apogee of the ring fort class of monument” that “provides a mirror of the organisation, economy and polity of Irish society” from AD 700 to AD 1000. Much is also made of “the monastic city of Clonmacnoise and its cultural landscape” by the Shannon. It is described in the submission as “an unparalleled and outstanding example of a relict early medieval insular monastic city unobscured by modern building development”. Clonmacnoise is also included in a submission on early monastic sites along with Durrow, Glendalough, Inis Cealtra, Kells and Monasterboice. However, this is only the start of a process of getting them designated, with the likely tourism opportunities such status would bring, as Mr Gormley said. The full list is to be presented to Unesco’s World Heritage Committee meeting in Brasilia at the end of July.
Campaigners from Save Newgrange and TaraWatch today accused the Government of failing to protect Newgrange and Tara. The controversial M3 is passing close to Tara, while other contentious plans have been drawn up for the N2 Slane bypass less than a kilometre from the Newgrange-Brú na Boinne complex. Vincent Salafia said the groups would protest at the Unesco meeting in Brazil this summer over Ireland’s treatment of heritage sites. “We support the nomination of the Hill of Tara as a world heritage site, but only on condition that measures are taken to mitigate the damage caused by the M3,” he said. “We are also going to demand that Ireland is forced to amend the National Monuments Act, since the current act does not give adequate protection for any world heritage site in Ireland.”
WRITE letters to lettersed@irishtimes.com
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04.13.10
Posted in News, Transport at 10:37 pm by Vincent
Material in M3 also used in houses with subsidence
The Irish Times – Thursday, April 8, 2010
TIM O’BRIEN
MATERIAL USED in the construction of the M3 motorway in Co Meath was sourced from two quarries which also supplied material to houses later discovered to have problems with subsidence, an Oireachtas committee was told yesterday. However, the National Roads Authority insisted there were no implications regarding the motorway. More than 400 homes in north Co Dublin suffered from movement of foundations and up to 20,000 homes across the country have allegedly been damaged by pyrite, an infill material allegedly used in their construction.
While chief executive of the National Roads Authority (NRA) Fred Barry acknowledged infill material for the M3 had been sourced from two quarries from which alleged pyrite had also been obtained, he dismissed any suggestion of serious damage to the motorway. Mr Barry told Meath TD Shane McEntee (FG) there was no need for an independent audit of the M3 or the section of N3 from the West-Link toll to Clonee. Speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on Transport yesterday, Mr Barry said infill material for support structures such as cement pillars and steel bars was rigorously monitored and could be traced. The NRA was happy no material from the two quarries identified had been used in connection with either steel or cement. He said the material from the quarries could have been used on embankments. In this case, pyrite – if it had been present at all – was not boxed in by foundations as it would be in a house. There would be minimal impact if the material “shifted, heaved, or expanded” as it might in foundations.
Mr Barry said there was no recorded incidence of pyrite ever having definitively affected one of the national routes, although he did accept there was one recorded incidence of a motorway “heaving” by a few millimetres. It was not a serious problem he said, and had never been unquestionably attributed to pyrite. But Mr McEntee said he did not accept there was no need for an independent audit of the presence of pyrite in the motorway and he questioned whether the contractor would be willing or able to rectify the matter if major issues developed in a number of years, as had happened with the houses. Tommy Broughan TD (Lab) also questioned the NRA on the presence of pyrite saying he had been first to estimate that there may be up to 20,000 affected homes which were not covered by their insurance policies. The cost of remedial action for the houses could be as much as €60 billion, he said.
Mr Barry responded that as the M3 was a public private partnership the matter would be an issue for the contractor who would be operating the motorway and collecting tolls for the next 45 years. However he undertook to respond to the transport committee with the insurance provided by the contractor. On motorway service areas, Fine Gael spokesman on transport Fergus O’Dowd asked Mr Barry to confirm he had been told by Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey not to spend money on the service area programme.Mr Barry acknowledged the NRA had received a letter from the Minister containing an instruction not to spend money on the programme.
WRITE TO lettersed@irishtimes.com
See also:
RTE: Pyrite caused two Meath homes ‘to explode’
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0407/construction.html
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02.10.10
Posted in News at 1:31 pm by Vincent
Download M3 Toll byelaws economic analysis
Download M3 Toll byelaws written submission
TaraWatch has today made its objections to the National Roads Authority (NRA), in response to the NRA’s call for public submissions for the Draft Bye-laws for M3 motorway Tolling. TaraWatch is objecting to the ’shadow tolling clause’ in the Public Private Partnership Contract with Eurolink.The clause provides or direct payments to be made to Eurolink, from the Department of Finance, in the event that traffic on the M3 falls below a certain level. There was no mention of the minimum traffic clause at the 2007 NRA Toll Hearing, held into objections made to the Draft M3 Tolling scheme, published in 2002. The Hearing was held just weeks before the contract was signed, but it was kept secret that the Government had already gotten pre-approval for the shadow tolling clause in the M3 contract from the European Commission in 2006, stating that the clause would not violate EU competition law, as improper State Aid. TaraWatch claims that traffic levels on the M3 will never meet NRA predictions of 22,000 cars a day, and that the shadow tolling clause amounts to an unconscionable burden on the taxpayer. TaraWatch also claim that the process that led to its introduction, and therefore the tolling bye-laws themselves, breach of Irish and EU law. An economic analysis of the M3, prepared by engineer Rod Aldrich, P.E., accompanies the submission.
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01.05.10
Posted in Law Library, Litigation, News at 10:12 pm by Vincent
Protesters clash with security workers at the M3 motorway site at Rath Lugh in Co Meath in 2008. Photograph: PA
Expulsion of US lawyer to be investigated
The Irish Times – Monday, January 4, 2010
THE GARDA Ombudsman is to investigate a complaint by environmental group Tarawatch about the detention and repatriation of an American human rights lawyer. Matt Schwoebel (27), lawyer and programme director of 2048 Project, a human rights project at Berkeley Law School at the University of California, arrived in Dublin on November 23rd. Mr Schwoebel had been invited to Ireland by Tarawatch to take statements from protesters who had objected to the construction of the M3 motorway close to the Hill of Tara. He was to advise the group on its appeal to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the treatment of the objectors. He had also intended to investigate the Garda’s role in monitoring the actions of Tara campaigners. He was stopped by the Garda National Immigration Bureau and questioned about his trip and then told he could not enter the State. The reason given was he had insufficient funds. Mr Schwoebel said he gave gardaí the website of the Tarawatch campaign so they could contact spokesman Vincent Salafia to validate he was staying with him. He also said he had $100 in cash with him and a Visa card with several thousand dollars in his account.
“I offered to take out $1,000 before I left the airport,” he said. He described his dealings with gardaí as hostile from the beginning and said he believed gardaí did not attempt to contact Mr Salafia to verify his story. He was then put on a flight back to San Francisco. Mr Salafia made an official complaint about the incident on behalf of Mr Schwoebel to the Garda Ombudsman. In a letter seen by The Irish Times , the Ombudsman’s office said it was appropriate to refer the complaint to the Garda Commissioner. “The Ombudsman has decided the complaint should be investigated by a Garda investigating officer supervised by the Garda Ombudsman,” the letter said. Mr Salafia said he believed Mr Schwoebel had sufficient funds to support himself in Ireland and was denied entry because of his intention to carry out legal work for Tarawatch. He said he hoped the matter would be resolved as quickly as possible so that Mr Schwoebel could return to Ireland to carry out his work.
- FIONA GARTLAND
WRITE TO: lettersed@irishtimes.com
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