Republican News · Thursday 28 August 2003

Motorway at Hill of Tara a disgrace

Meath Sinn Féin Councillor Joe Reilly has described as "scandalous" the decision of An Bord Pleanála to give the go ahead to a motorway, between the important historical site of the Hill of Tara and Skyrne. "The negative impact of massive volumes of traffic in close proximity to the Hill of Tara is intolerable," he said, adding that if the toll road goes ahead "we will have four toll roads coming into Meath, making it the most expensive county in Ireland to drive through.

"There will be no benefit to the people of Meath, only to the private companies involved who will in effect have a licence to print money.

"Public Private Partnership is nothing more than an expensive form of hire purchase and it is the ordinary motorists who are going to pay the price for this through tolls. It is absolutely unnecessary and the worst kind of short-term thinking. It would be far more economically sensible to raise the money for the development of our infrastructure through borrowing or increased taxation on the wealthy or big business instead of hitting the ordinary motorist."

Reilly says he will be writing to both the National Roads Authority and the Minister for Transport asking that they urgently review what will be an intolerable situation for the people of Meath.