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The National Roads Authority is bent on pursuing a plan that would visually compromise the setting of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth

THIRTEEN YEARS ago, when I went to Japan for the first time to cover the Kyoto climate change summit, someone who knows the country well told me that it was largely run for the benefit of its concrete industry. “After building all the motorways and high-speed rail lines, they got into concreting river banks and even beaches,” he said.