The Green Party has criticised the National Roads Authority (NRA) for using taxpayers' money to promote and justify its plan to run the M3 motorway past the Hill of Tara, in Co Meath.
Mr Eamon Ryan TD, the party's transport spokesman, was referring to a full-page advertisement in two Sunday newspapers yesterday.
The same advertisement appears on page 5 in today's edition of The Irish Times.
"Is this really the best use of taxpayers' money?" he asked. "The Green Party will now ask the chairman of the All Party Oireachtas Committee on Transport to invite the NRA to come before the committee to detail its reasons for building the motorway."
The newspaper advertisements were also criticised by the Save the Tara-Skryne Valley group, which queried whether Ms Monica Leech, the Waterford-based public relations associate of the Minister for Transport, Mr Cullen, was acting as a "spin doctor" in the campaign.
It said parliamentary questions in relation to the issue would be lodged by the Green Party this week and it hoped the matter would be raised by the Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte TD, during Leaders' Questions to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, tomorrow.
In its advertisement, the NRA said it was taking this "unprecedented step of setting out the true facts" in response to "misinformation" allegedly put forward by opponents of the €800 million motorway plan, so people could decide for themselves.
It denied that there was a better route, east of the Hill of Skryne, saying such a route would place "dozens of homes" within 25 metres of the centre line of the motorway, and insisted that archaeological advice had been heeded in choosing the present alignment.
But the Save the Tara-Skryne Valley campaign said there were "miles of flat land ... as far as the eye can see" east of Skryne and thus "no necessity to sever the archaeological complex of Tara". It also urged bypasses should be provided for Kells, Navan and Dunshaughlin.
"The Dunshaughlin bypass was approved in 1999. It would have been completed by now had it not then been included in this faulty M3 toll scheme. We are calling on the NRA to begin work now, in order to alleviate traffic congestion and increase safety," a spokesman said.
Mr Vincent Salafia, the campaign's public relations officer, said: "The NRA simply got it wrong. Instead of admitting their mistake, they are using taxpayers' money to wage an enormously expensive publicity campaign, in order to drown out public opinion."
