A lobby group supporting the controversial M3 motorway, which will run near Tara, yesterday told a Dáil Committee that its surveys indicated that more than 100,000 people in the area were in favour of the project.
Mr Michael Slavin of the group, Meath Citizens for M3, said that since its formation a month ago it had collected over 5,000 signatures for its petition in support of the motorway.
Mr Slavin told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, in the latest in a series of hearings, that "over the last year a massive and terrible hoax had been played on people at home and abroad who revere Tara".
"Through carefully worded propaganda, they have been hoodwinked into thinking that the proposed M3 goes through the Hill of Tara.
"Nothing could be further from the truth. The proposed M3 poses no more threat to the Hill of Tara than the River Dodder poses to this House," Mr Slavin said.
He said the group had been formed last month by eight local people.
They were "frustrated at the near impossibility of travelling on the N3 [ the existing road] and demoralised by the incessant barrage of misinformation and propaganda against the proposed relief M3 that was being promulgated in every sector of the media".
He continued: "Since our surveys show a constant 90 per cent vote in favour of the M3, we have no doubt whatsoever that we would have the backing of 100,000 and more of Meath's 135,000 citizens."
Mr Slavin said that, of 318 families living in the Tara/Skryne area surveyed by the group, 285 supported the current motorway route.
Mr Slavin told the committee that sections of the existing N3 between Navan and Dunshaughlin had nearly twice the level of traffic that it was designed to carry safely.
"We are heartened by the estimate that the M3 could cut accidents in this area by between 30 and 50 per cent," he said.
