DUBLIN'S new Northern Cross motorway, linking the Western Parkway and the M1 to the airport, was opened at midday yesterday by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin.
The 11km motorway, built at a cost of £71 million, features four interchanges and 18 bridges.
It is the second major element of the M50 motorway (or "C ring") around the capital which will eventually link the Wexford, Cork, Galway, Cavan and Belfast roads.
Mr Howlin said more roads were not the complete answer to the State's transport needs, especially in urban areas. However, he stressed that "before we can tackle Dublin's transport problems, we have to remove through traffic.
"With European Commission support, this is exactly what we are doing with the Northern Cross and the rest of the Dublin C ring."
Mr Howlin said that, subject to, a satisfactory outcome to a Supreme Court legal challenge later this month, a phased start to the Southern Cross motorway was planned for next year.
The consultancy and statutory process for the South Eastern Motorway, the final link to the Wexford road, should also be completed in 1997.
Joining Mr Howlin at yesterday's unveiling ceremony in the shadow of the huge three decked" flyover at the junction with the Navan Road were the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Brendan Lynch; the Cathaoirleach of Fingal County Council, Ms Anne Devitt; the Cathaoirleach of South Dublin County Council, Ms Therese Ridge; the director of the EU Cohesion Fund, Mr Jean Franois Verstrynge; Ministers of State, Mr Austin Currie and Ms Joan Burton, and the chairman of the National Roads Authority, Mr Liam Connellan.
There were small protest demonstrations by a former Green Party TD and colleagues who arrived on bicycles carrying a banner bearing the slogan "Trams not Cars"; and by the Federation of Anti Water Charges Campaigns, led by Councillor Joe Higgins of, the Socialist Party, demanding that Mr Howlin immediately abolish domestic water, refuse and sewerage charges.
The Automobile Association welcomed the opening of the motorway and the fact that extensive lobbying on its part had helped to prevent the imposition of a toll on the new road.
An AA spokesman Mr Conor, Faughnan, said the National Road Authority's original intention, charge a toll was "an absurdity in the making the notion of changing for the use of a ring road is without precedent anywhere in the world."