Concert cash to be given away in Tara protest

Environmentalists campaigning against the M3 motorway at Tara are planning to give away the proceeds of a benefit concert in protest over the Government’s National Development Plan (NDP).

TaraWatch, which has been battling to re-route the controversial M3 route, will hand out money outside the new Department of Finance offices on Dublin’s Baggot Street.

But anyone expecting a windfall has been warned builders will only be given €1, medical workers and teachers will get just 20 cents while the homeless will get nothing.

Vincent Salafia, spokesman for the protesters, said it symbolises the imbalance in Government priorities with support for builders radically higher than other areas of society.

“The economic justification for the NDP and the M3 has evaporated, with the economic downturn, and it is economic suicide to carry on as if nothing has happened,” he said.

“Fianna Fáil, mindlessly propped up by the Green Party and the Progressive Democrats, have clearly made a lot promises to their supporters in the building trade that they feel cannot be undone, no matter what logic it defies or what damage it does to the economy as a whole.

“We are demanding truly sustainable development, not the corrupted version we are being fed at the moment, that is harming rather than improving society as a whole.”

Dressed as fat-cats the demonstrators will hold their protest and offer donations over lunchtime.

The proceeds will come from the Tara Benefit Concert being held tonight in Dublin’s Arts Club.

PA