Anti-motorway group offers advice on how to oppose new roads plans

A recently formed national anti-motorways group is advising a south Kildare community on opposition to the proposed M9 motorway.

The group, which recently held a rally at the Abbeyleix Manor Hotel in Laois, is to send delegates to protest meetings throughout the midlands - the area which is most affected by the Government's plans for roads to the west, south and south-east.

On Tuesday next, at a public meeting in Ballyshannon, Co Kildare, the group will offer advice on how communities in Ballyshannon might resist options proposed by the National Roads Authority for the route selection for the M9, the proposed new motorway between Dublin and Waterford.

The Ballyshannon meeting, to which all local county councillors and TDs have been invited, will hear local people claim the proposed motorway has a greater capacity for traffic than is projected in growth figures for the region.

The locals also argue that a new motorway is not necessary to address access issues between Dublin and the southeast. And they claim it will lead to unacceptably high community severance.

Another argument against the proposed road is the prospect of tolls being imposed. Locals argue that it would be unfair that they pay regional tolls for journeys as short as a few miles between Ballyshannon and Kilcullen. Furthermore, they argue that if travellers continue to use the old road to avoid the tolls the new motorway would be unnecessary and uneconomical.

The Ballyshannon group has styled itself the A1 and A2 Protest Group, arguing that the two options are much the same choice, with the same amount of community severance. Both roads, they say, run virtually parallel to the existing N78 between Kilcullen and Athy.

According to John and Oliver Dowling, who have a family farm and run a public house in Ballyshannon, the motorway would leave many farms unviable, while their customers in the pub would have a 12-mile round trip to get there.

"It is just the policy to have as few bridges and underpasses as possible while their road is not supposed to have junctions," says John Dowling. His brother Oliver said such a detour would put many people off visiting Ballyshannon.

However, according to Ms Mary Kelly, a spokeswoman for the group, the members accept that not everybody is opposed to the motorway. "Definitely there are a lot of people in Athy in favour of the motorway, and they have their reasons. But we have ours, and the communities in Ballyshannon and Calverstown are opposed to the motorway and can see no benefit for them in it," she said.

The group has already met the National Roads Authority to voice its opposition but felt its case was not accepted.

"We felt the NRA have been at this kind of thing for years while we are new to protest, doing it in our spare time. This is why we went to the meeting in Co Laois and we have invited the people there to come and share their experience of similar campaigns with us. "Many of the national groups have been involved in these kinds of protests before, some unsuccessful, some successful. So they will be able to tell us where the best arguments are to be made," Ms Kelly said.

The Ballyshannon public meeting will be held in the Ballyshannon Hall on Tuesday next, at 8.00 p.m.