More than 1,000 objections to the Cashel-Mitchelstown stretch of the planned Dublin-Cork motorway were handed in yesterday to Tipperary South County Council.
The petitions were carried on a stretcher through Clonmel in a protest organised by the N8 Action Group, which wants the existing Dublin-Cork road to be upgraded rather than a new dual carriageway built.
The stretcher, carried by four young people in the Tipperary GAA colours, was symbolic of a "sick democracy", said the group's chairman, the former IFA president, Mr Joe Rea. About 1,100 petitions against the project were collected.
The group plans to make the motorway an issue in the Tipperary South by-election, which is expected to be held in the summer, and is also considering legal action to prevent the project going ahead.
It claims that local communities are not being consulted properly about the new road, to be built through a picturesque valley between the Galtee Mountains and the Knockmeal downs and Comeraghs. Mr Rea said that while questionnaires had been issued to the public, the group had been told that objections to the road would not be taken into consideration. However, the secretary of Tipperary South County Council, Mr Michael Fitzgerald, said the objections received yesterday would be passed on to the consultants handling the project in common with all other returned questionnaires.
The consultants would make recommendations based on all the submissions received, he said. The National Roads Authority has said the dual carriageway, which is to be built to motorway standard, will reduce journey times between Dublin and Cork by 58 minutes.
Upgrading the existing road would take longer and be more expensive, it says. The new road is one of five high-quality dual carriageways or motorways to be built by 2006 under the National Development Plan. Mr Rea claimed the Government was giving motorways greater priority than the health service.
The people of Tipperary South recently completed a fundraising drive to buy a CAT scan for St Joseph's Hospital in Clonmel.
"One mile of motorway, which costs £10 million, would buy 20 CAT scans.
