A group which is opposed to the route of the controversial M3 motorway has repeated its call on the Minister for the Environment to change the route.
Members of TaraWatch yesterday gathered outside the Green Party headquarters on Suffolk Street in Dublin to urge passers-by to sign a petition calling on Minister John Gormley to reroute the motorway.
Mr Gormley had "a constitutional duty to give the highest statutory protection possible to Ireland's premier heritage site and to reroute the M3 away from the historic Tara Complex," said group spokesman Vincent Salafia.
The group noted a recent announcement by EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas of possible legal action against Ireland for a breach of EU law in formulating the National Development Plan under which the M3 is financed.
Mr Dimas recently wrote to the department saying that the commission believed Ireland's failure to conduct a strategic environmental assessment for the National Development Plan was in breach of a key 2001 EU directive.
This followed a complaint filed by TaraWatch to the EU over the lack of consultation and transparency in the NDP in February. Its key concern was that environmental experts and groups had been excluded from the policy formation stages of national planning.
A Department of Finance spokeswoman said legal advice from the Attorney General's Office before the drafting and launch of the NDP was that a strategic environmental assessment was not required.