ORGANISERS OF the weekend Climate Camp at Victoria Bridge, Co Tyrone, have called on the Government to withdraw pledged funding of £400 million (€487 million) for the controversial A5 dual-carriageway planned to link Aughnacloy with Derry.
“We as Irish taxpayers don’t want our money spent on this road. At a time when we’re facing cuts in public services and such a large national debt, we should be suspending the allocation of money for unsustainable infrastructure like this road,” said spokeswoman Molly Walsh.
Provision for cross-Border investment in the A5 scheme was made in the National Development Plan 2007-2013 on foot of the St Andrews Agreement made between the Irish and British governments and Northern Ireland’s political parties in October 2006.
It was billed by then minister for finance Brian Cowen in March 2007 as the key element of a major new roads programme to provide dual-carriageways serving the “gateway” of Letterkenny/Derry and the eastern seaboard corridor from Belfast to Larne. Although neither of these schemes were specifically included in the recently published revised capital spending priorities, a spokesman for the Department of Finance confirmed the Government “is still committed to that project” (the A5 dual-carriageway).
Opposition in Co Tyrone is being led by the A5 Alternative Alliance, which has called for “sustainable options” to be examined “before committing the residents of this county to a future marred by the destruction of farms and homes, lives and livelihoods caused by this unwise project”.
Yesterday, Climate Camp activists held a strategy meeting with the Alternative A5 Alliance and then walked some of the route to “highlight how much of the Tyrone woodland and farmland will be destroyed.
“There are a lot of positive lessons that we can learn from the successes of the anti-roads movement of the 1990s. We’re confident that together we can defeat this unwanted road,” Ms Walsh said. Climate Camp activists cited studies showing bigger roads increase carbon emissions. Carrying banners saying “Re-Train our Transport – No New Road”, the activists called on the authorities on both sides of the Border to examine the possibility of reopening the long-defunct Dublin-Derry railway line.
Speaking at the Climate Camp in favour of rail, Derry journalist and author Eamonn McCann said: “As the Russian wheat crisis is showing, the price of bread in the corner shop is connected to climate change . . . These are now mainstream issues.”