Environmental campaigners have launched legal action against the State to stop the destruction of heritage sites in the Tara valley during the construction of the M3 motorway.
The Campaign to Save Tara group was announcing the latest steps in the campaign to have the multi-million euro M3 motorway diverted away from the historic Hill of Tara site.
The campaigners said the case is being taken "in the public interest and only after all other democratic avenues have been exhausted".
Campaign to Save Tara
The named plaintiff is Michael Canney, a member and former spokesperson, for the campaign.
He plans to take his action against the Minister for the Environment, the Minister for Transport, the National Roads Authority and Eurolink Ltd, the consortium awarded the construction and tolling contract for the motorway.
In a statement, the campaign group said: "The action, by means of a plenary summons which was served on the named defendants last week...is seeking a ruling that construction should be halted on the M3 pending the outcome of a case at present before the European Court of Justice relating to the Lismullen National Monument.
"A number of other claims are made including a ruling that the Minister for the Environment has failed in his duty to protect Irish National Heritage as required under Article 5 of the Constitution. Additionally there are a number of claims relating to the procedures adopted in relation to Environmental Impact Assessments," the statement added.
An Bord Pleanala last week approved construction work on the road through a recently discovered national monument at Lismullen, about 2km from the hill.
The board was examining whether the discovery last April of the ancient structure in the motorway's path would require a fresh planning application.
But it said the find did not constitute a material alteration to the M3 scheme, which it had already approved in September 2003.
The European Union's petitions committee said a route review should be carried out.
MEP Kathy Sinnott, who is vice-chair of the petitions committee, said today is the final day for a response from the Government to a letter of warning from the European Commission.
"Two months ago, the European Commission sent a letter of final warning to the Irish government that the EIS (Environmental Impact Assessment), on which the M3 motorway project is based, is invalid and that the National Monuments Act, on which the proposed destruction of Lismullen is based, is out of line with the EIA Directive on Tara," she said.
"Today is the deadline for Minister Gormley's response. I do not at this stage know what the Government's response will be to the Commission's allegations but I am happy to say that today we are making our own response to the concern of the European Commission and of the European Parliament Petitions Committee and the thousands of friends of Tara in Ireland and around the world."
Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney sent a message that was read as the campaigners announced their move in Dublin today.
"It could be said that the Campaign to Save Tara is putting its case in the name of dead generations: for the past two millennia those generations regarded Tara as a place invested with sacred as opposed to secular value. Protest against the loss of this value remains an imperative," he said.
Also present were archaeologists Joseph Fenwick and Prof George Eogan, MEP Kathy Sinnott, author Morgan Llywelen and members of the campaign's legal team. An Taisce and the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society were also represented.