Madam, - What a perverse interpretation by Reg McCabe (March 17th) of the predominance of anti-M3 letters to the Editor. Rather than recognising that this reflects the genuine scale of the opposition to the selected route, he chooses to see it as a product of editorial bias.
Equally bizarre is his assumption that, since nearly 25 per cent of the people polled by Ibec believe the M3 will run right over the Hill of Tara, those people have been victims of a "campaign of disinformation". On the contrary, it merely demonstrates that about 25 per cent of the people surveyed remain totally uninformed about the route - despite the enormous amount of our money spent by the NRA in setting out its stall.
Had he done his homework and checked the past three years of correspondence in the press, Mr McCabe would have noticed that not one correspondent opposing the road alignment has stated that the M3 is routed over the Hill of Tara. This innuendo is nothing more than mischief-making, given the veneer of objectivity by reference to a discredited poll conducted by Meath Chamber of Commerce and an unpublished Ibec poll. An acid test of public opinion on the matter occurred this month when, even after making his endorsement of the present M3 route a cornerstone of his campaign, the Fianna Fáil candidate in the Meath by-election failed to win the seat. Instead of trying to dismiss as a chimera the weight of both national and international public opinion on this matter, Mr McCabe should wake up to the reality that business interests do not always carry more weight than cultural values, even in contemporary Ireland. - Yours, etc.,
CONOR NEWMAN,
Department of Archaeology,
NUI,
Galway.