Campaigners against the current route of the M3 motorway near the Hill of Tara will picket a number of international Irish embassies and Dáil Eireann tomorrow in protest at the Government's response to a European Commission warning over the legality of aspects of the project.
Members of Tarawatch will picket at noon (local times) in London, New York, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, while local protesters will begin gathering at Leinster House at 11am.
A protest march will also be held in Dublin on Saturday, July 21st at 1pm, which will go from the Garden of Remembrance to Custom House, the headquarters of the Department of the Environment.
Campaigners have said they are "inflamed" by what they describe as the Green Party's election pact with Fianna Fáil to agree to the M3 motorway project and today's announcement by Environment Minister John Gormley that the Government will not re-route the road despite Euopean criticism.
Earlier today the Government said it will not re-route the M3 despite an official warning from the European Commission that it is in breach of European law in relation to the planning of the controversial road.
This morning Minister for the Environment John Gormley said he did not have the power to undo the last-minute decision taken by predecessor Dick Roche to sign an order which permits the road works to proceed.
But Irish MEP Kathy Sinnott has called on the Government to re-route the M3, saying the legal breach now makes it possible for the Minister to do so.
She said Mr Gormley "can and must" re-route the road, which campaigners claim will destroy precious cultural and archaeological heritage near the Hill of Tara site at Lismullen, Co Meath.
Speaking on RTÉ radio this morning Mr Gormley said his department had received a 20-page document from the European Commission last week outlining the legal breach, which he claimed is "essentially about the transposition of environmental impact assessment directives and our failure to do that properly".
Mr Gormley said the matter had been raised with the Government initially in 2001 and again in 2005 but said that following the legal advice of the Attorney General he was now in a position where "unless there was a material change of circumstances I could not revise the decision that was made by Dick Roche".
However, Ms Sinnott said the identification of the Lismullen site as a national monument this year constituted a material change of circumstances and insisted the M3 Motorway project was now "illegal" as it lacks a valid Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
"According to the European Commission a material change has occurred in the shape of the monument at Lismullin, which was not taken into account in the Environmental Impact Assessment conducted in 2003," she said.
"This assessment was on the basis that no national monument lay in the path of the road. The discovery and identification of Lismullin as a national monument this year represents a definite change in circumstance that could not have been taken into account at the time of the 2003 EIA," she added.
Today Mr Gormley said he was taking the EU warning "very seriously indeed" and would travel tomorrow to Brussels to discuss the matter with the European Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas.
Responding to Ms Sinnott's calls to re-route the M3 Motorway, Mr Gormely said: "I don't have the power to re-route the entire M3 . . . I can only deal with the powers that I have, and what I intend to do is to speak to Commissioner Dimas tomorrow".
Darren Delahunty, one of the London group organisers, said: "Irish people in the UK are outraged at the refusal of the Irish authorities to try and proceed with the road, even when the public are so against it, and the EU have stated it is illegal.
"Since the Irish abroad could not vote in the Irish elections, we are making our views known to our Government in the only way we can," he said of the planned picket.