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Protest meetings were held in Dublin and outside Irish consulates in the US yesterday against last month's handover of the national monument site at Lismullin, Co Meath, to the company building the M3 motorway.

TaraWatch, the group campaigning against the construction of the M3 motorway close to the Hill of Tara, has said that the Department of the Environment had not been due to hand over the site to Siac until yesterday but had moved the date forward to December 18th. Significant damage had been done to the site since, the group said.