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The Price of Exercising your Democratic Rights...
Try to protest, Pay with your Reputation.
The NRA throws around groundless allegations: and those who protest find the price of exercising their democratic rights comes very high indeed. This week, The Irish Times published an article by Tim O'Brien, reporting "M3 delays costing 1m a week - NRA". It's a charming piece in which the NRA goes on not only to claim that the opposition to their Motorway is costing the tax payers a mysterious 1 million Euro a week - but "points out" that nine people have died on the N3 in a 21 month period. Just how this latter fact is the fault of the various groups opposing the motorway they neglect to explain. But the implication is clear.
Those who dare oppose the motorway are thieves and murderers (a point Vincent Salafia raised in an article in the same newspaper refuting the NRA's claims) If you, like me, think that re-routing a single section of a motorway to protect a national monument, related sites and generally important archaeology is reasonable, be prepared to hear yourself vilified.
Of course the NRA has no actual grounds for their claims. Firstly, there is no delay, at least none caused by the protesters. There is no injunction. Noone is throwing themselves under a bulldozer to prevent the work. There isn't even a hairy tree-hugger chained to a JCB. 12 months ago, not 21, Minister Dick Roche gave his instructions and work started. The law suit by Vincent Salafia was filed after this date. Work has proceeded unimpeded. So if one million Euro a week is going missing I for one - as a tax payer with no offshore accounts - would like to know where the hell has it gone?
Secondly, while it is disgusting that 9 people died on any stretch of road, sadly hundreds are dying on our roads every year. The causes are a little more complex than the NRA would seem to acknowledge. Then again given they are responsible for building the roads and infrastructure on which so many die...well one can understand them looking for excuses elsewhere. But what exactly has opposing the motorway to do with that statistic of 9 dead?
Is the NRA telling us that allowed to go their preferred route they will build a great road, but force them to move a little and they'll build a bad one? surely they plan on building the road to a high standard wherever its route lies? And as construction on the motorway in question was never due to start until next year, 2007, how could any lives have been saved? What is the link between these deaths and a lawsuit that has not delayed construction by one day? perhaps we can find the answer in the same safety deposit box as the one million per week.
And if the NRA is so safety conscious could we please have some crash barriers on the M50? Thanks!
And people think the Da Vinci code is mysterious
Of course for the NRA to lecture you or me on wasting tax payers money is a tad ironic in itself. I drive, I pay tax - I am the mug paying for the road. And if it gets built I will be the one paying tolls on that road. The NRA on the other hand is the body that presides over the National Roads program under the
National Development Plan 2000-2006. The budget for which is now nearing 20 billion, up from an
original allocation of 6 billion. And it is only half finished.
But the most sinister aspect of all this? the ease with which the mud was sung, aided by journalists and the ease which with it sticks. Oppose the Motorway, this tells people, and you ally yourself with thieves and murderers. Exercise a democratic right to protest, and you will find yourself one rung below smokers in the social pariah stakes. Give up and give in, this wheedles, or we'll make you out to be the bad guys.
Yes, the price of our democratic freedoms just got that little but higher.
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dublin |
rights, freedoms and repression |
opinion/analysis
Wednesday May 17, 2006 14:39
by Geraldine Moorkens Byrne
byrnemus at eircom dot net
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Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5M3 delays costing 1m a week - NRA
Tim O'Brien
Irish Times
Mon, May 15, 06
Delays in building the planned M3 toll-motorway through Co Meath are
currently costing 1 million a week and have already amounted to about
70 million, the National Roads Authority (NRA) has claimed.
The NRA has also claimed that nine people have been killed on an
existing 10-kilometre stretch of the main road in the vicinity of the
Hill of Tara in the last 21 months.
The authority's plans to replace this road as the principal road in the
region with the new motorway have brought it into direct conflict with
archaeologists and conservationists concerned about the preservation
and setting of the Hill of Tara.
A Supreme Court challenge to the motorway route was recently announced
by Vincent Salafia of the Save Tara Skryne Valley campaign. Mr
Salafia's High Court case was earlier dismissed by that court with
costs estimated at about 500,000 being awarded against him. However,
Mr Salafia has said he will take his case to the European Court, if
necessary.
This weekend the NRA said it had hoped that work would have already
started on the motorway by now. Spokesman Seαn O'Neill said the cost of
the delays in terms of money and human life "was incredible".
He said the figure of 1 million had been calculated in terms of lost
business at either end of the route and in terms of lost time for
commercial and commuting traffic in the area, as well as direct costs
incurred by the NRA itself. The authority had conservatively estimated
the loss at 1 million a week, which he calculated had so far cost in
excess of 70 million and which was "rising all the time".
Mr O'Neill said it was significant that the 10-kilometre stretch of
road northwards from Dunshaughlin had been the scene of nine fatalities
in the last 21 months. He pointed to Garda and National Safety Council
advice that suggested that long, largely straight, single- carriageway
roads, such as much of the existing N3, were among the State's most
dangerous. The NRA was, he said, seeking to replace the road with a
motorway which was among the State's safest type of road, because of
the separation of traffic.
Citing Garda statistics, Mr O'Neill said there were seven fatal
collisions on the stretch in question, causing nine deaths. They
included deaths at Ross in August 2004 and at Cooksland in January
2005. These were followed by deaths at Limekiln Hill in February 2005;
at Clowanstown in August 2005; at Kilcarn where three pedestrians died
in January of this year; at Philpotstown also in January of this year
and again at Philpotstown last month.
In addition, he pointed out there had been a number collisions at Ross
and Dunshaughlin throughout the period which had resulted in what the
gardaν termed "serious injury".
The Save Tara Skryne Valley group and other campaigners have complained
that the route of the motorway passes too close to the Hill of Tara, a
national monument.
The existing national primary route, the N3 Dublin to Cavan road, is
currently dual carriageway to the Clonee bypass on the Dublin/Meath
border, and it then passes through the centre of Dunshaughlin to the
Navan inner relief road and on through the centre of Kells.
The scheme to replace it as the principal route to the northwest
provides for a toll motorway from the dual carriageway at Clonee to
Carnaross north of Kells, a distance of about 60 kilometres.
NRA accused of misinformation
Irish Times
Tue, May 16, 06
The environmental campaigner Vincent Salafia has accused the National
Roads Authority (NRA) of attempting to "poison public opinion" in
claiming that delays have been caused to the proposed M3 Motorway and
that those delays are currently costing 1 million a week.
"Both these assertions are completely false because the M3 has not been
delayed in any way whatsoever because of the legal challenge," he said.
Mr Salafia, whose Supreme Court case against the route of the proposed
motorway is pending, also insisted it was damaging to his reputation to
point out that nine people had died along an existing 10km stretch of
the N3 over the past 21 months.
"The misinformation from the NRA is designed to poison public opinion
and paint conservationists as murderers and thieves in the public mind,
and to influence the Supreme Court by alleging astronomical figures in
delays," he maintained.
The NRA yesterday said it could assert "absolutely and without
hesitation" that construction had been delayed at a current cost
estimated at 1 million a week. It also asserted that the nine deaths
were "a simple, verifiable matter of fact".
Having read the original article by Mr O'Brien, I have to say I have rarely seen such a piece of journalism based around innuendo, inference and implication. It is a masterpice of misdirection! I'd like to congratulate Ms Byrne on her verbal bulls-eye on a target that is by its very nature elusive.
Tim O'Brien's article makes no sense whatsoever. It seems to be nothing more than an attempt to emotionally blackmail the road protesters and to mislead the public. As Ms Byrne outlines so well, his facts are wrong and his arguments are poor.
Hundreds of people die on the roads each year. Indeed, road deaths are so commonplace that they barely make the news. This is something I feel sad about, and my sympathies are with all who have been affected by road deaths. I feel that to sieze upon these nine deaths and insinuate that they are the fault of the protesters is in shockingly bad taste.
for a road which hasnt started construction yet but seems to have the magical powers to have prevented death and eat up millions of euros, i may suggest that an article be written more on fact than hearsay and possibilities and that the point of the article wasnt so much to elucidate a story as to invent one of protests causing deaths and costing millions of euros, maybe proof would be asked for to back up these claims rather than hear say and rumours.
Depends what you smoke, Ms Byrne. maybe you should start, you sound a little wound up.
smoking is a healthy habit compared to the petrol guzzler who demands the road, why don't you
get on your bike and cycle to Tara. Do a report on cycling the N3 and imagine the M3
ready-made , a ribbon of road.(upon which bicycles are not allowed) bring a camera and record the
experience.