The Oireachtas Committee on the Environment is to visit the Hill of Tara and surrounding area today as part of its inquiry into the controversial route of the proposed M3 motorway.
Members of the committee are to visit five sites close to, or on, the proposed route, and will be briefed by staff from the National Roads Authority (NRA) and Meath County Council about the route and archaeological sites found alongside it.
They will also meet Prof George Eogan, a leading expert on Neolithic and bronze age settlements, and an authority on the archaeological remains of sites in Co Meath.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, is due to make a decision after Christmas on whether to give licences allowing for the recording and partial destruction of an estimated 40-plus archaeological sites along the route through the Tara/Skryne valley to allow the road to be built. If he refuses the licences, the NRA will have to identify another route.
The committee is examining the significance of the archaeology, with a view to providing advice to Mr Roche.
However, its chairman, Mr Seán Haughey, has already said plans to route the M3 motorway through the Tara/Skryne valley was "bordering on vandalism" against one of Ireland's most important historic sites.
The Fianna Fáil member is the first Government TD to state his opposition to the proposed route, and to back a group of environmentalists and archaeologists campaigning against it.