The building of the M8 section of motorway through Laois, Kilkenny and Tipperary will be the greatest upheaval this century in at least one particular parish, according to a farmer whose holding is to be split by the new road.
Mr Pat Hogan, a dairy and beef farmer from Horse and Jockey in Co Tipperary, says he will have to quit farming altogether or acquire new land to make his holding viable.
He and his wife Kay are full-time farmers and their only son, Brian (18), a student at Gurteen Agricultural College, wants nothing else but to come home and work the family farm.
But now the family face a very uncertain future because the motorway will take up eight acres of their 140 acre holding.
Mr Hogan, a committee member of the Mid Tipperary M8 Motorway Action Group, said members were now resigned to the fact that the 40 km motorway would go ahead despite their opposition.
Kilkenny County Council has signed the Statutory Orders to commence the formal planning process for the new stretch linking Cullahill in Co Laois to Cashel in Co Tipperary.
In all, the stretch of motorway will affect 125 farms in Laois, Tipperary and Kilkenny, eating up 320 hectares of agricultural land. Five houses will also have to be demolished.
An Bord Pleanála can yet decide to stage an oral hearing but the consensus among landowners in the three counties is that the motorway will go ahead.
Like many other affected landowners, the Hogan family are being forced to try to find new land so that they have the acreage that will continue to provide a realistic income.
"Every bit of compensation we get for the land taken from us by CPO will have to be put back into making the farm viable," says Mr Hogan. "The whole process of the motorway has been very stressful, particularly negotiating on compensation. I can see the strain in the faces of other farmers too. It is affecting them."
In the Hogans' Co Tipperary parish of Two Mile Borris/Moycarkey alone the motorway will cut through 55 farms. Mr Hogan says the consequences for this rural community will be massive. "It's going to be the biggest upheaval in the parish this century. We will have 10 miles of a building site from one end of the parish to the other.
"It will make some farms unworkable, particularly dairy farms, but it will also affect some very good tillage farmers. " Apart from having their farm decimated, one of the biggest insults for the Hogan family is the tax treatment they face for being forced to sell part of their holding to the State.
Mr Hogan says he and other farmers will be badly hit by the abolition in the 2002 budget of "Roll Over" relief on capital gains tax. He also faces 9 per cent Stamp Duty on new lands he would hope to buy to supplement his acreage after part of his farm is compulsorily purchased for the motorway. He estimates his tax bill will be up to €58,000.