A DELEGATION from the Northern Distributor Concerned Residents – NDCR – group met with Transport Minister. Leo Varadkar, to voice their concerns about the threat to life in small villages posed by the road.
The four delegates also told the minister of their extreme dissatisfaction with the way in which local authority officials have dealt with communicating details of the planned route to people affected by it.
The NDCR members are furious with the ongoing refusal of the local authority to let them have sight of a constraints study, which sets out the case for constructing the road.
Even elected representatives have been told they cannot see the study, say group members.
The NDCR say that constructing the road will cut communities in half, make a local school inaccessible to many of its pupils and destroy communities.
“We have been told there’s no money to build the road and all that they want to do at this stage is to freeze the land for development much later but that’s even worse.
“No-one will be able to sell or develop their property or land and there will be no growth or progress in our communities. No-one will want to live in a village bisected by a road of this size,” a spokesman for the NDCR said.
The four delegates, representing residents of Parteen, Clonlara, Meelick, Lisnagry and other areas which will be affected if the plan goes ahead, met with the minister and deputies Jan O’Sullivan (Lab) and Willie O’Dea (FF). They were accompanied by Parteen councillor, Cathal Crowe(FF)
Following the meeting, the NDCR spokesman said that while the minister did not give a commitment about stopping the road, “we feel he did give us a fair hearing. He has undertaken to communicate to the council officials that he expects them to engage with us. Also, he will investigate what the normal practice is with constraints reports and communicate the result to us. It feels positive”.
