There is no justification for building the M3 motorway between Clonee and Kells in Co Meath, according to anthropologist and social scientist Father Sean McDonagh.
A Columban missionary, Father McDonagh yesterday made the first submission by the order against the motorway at a Bord Pleanála oral hearing. The order claims its 540 acres at Dalgan Park, Navan, including woodlands and walks, would be affected if the motorway proceeded as it cuts through the land.
Father McDonagh said the National Roads Needs Study, commissioned by the Government at a cost of £2 million in 1998, accepted that a dual-carriageway be constructed between Clonee and Kells. However, two years later the National Development Plan identified a motorway as suitable. "People have a right to know whose agenda is being served by these massive, unnecessary motorway-building programmes which divide communities, destroy land and will contribute enormously to Ireland's greenhouse gas overrun."
The order is one of 300 objectors to the motorway.