CAMPAIGNERS AGAINST the planned M3 motorway at Tara told MEPs yesterday that the Government had behaved like the Taliban by destroying Ireland's cultural heritage.
They called on the European Parliament and European Commission to ask the Government to review the impact of the M3 on Tara's landscape and to carry out an independent inquiry into the construction of the motorway.
"In the past 2½ years we have witnessed the steady destruction of this uniquely important landscape - a destruction akin to the Taliban's destruction of Afghanistan's cultural heritage," said Julitta Clancy, former president of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society, in her submission to the parliament's petitions committee. "We have also witnessed the further destruction caused to numerous new archaeological sites and complexes around Tara."
However, a request for the commission to intervene to prevent the completion of the M3 was rejected. Commission official Liam Cashman said it did not have the power to request interim measures from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to protect archaeological sites. "There is no substantive protection for archaeological sites as there is for nature sites under European legislation," said Mr Cashman.
He also revealed that the commission had not yet submitted a legal case against the Republic to the ECJ over its failure to implement EU law governing environmental impact statements. He said it would make an application to the ECJ within a few months.