Sir, - In days gone by, Dick Turpin and his ilk preyed on those who travelled by turnpike and highway. The rule of law quickly crushed these brigands, much more quickly than legend recalls. Today, farming organisations and ATGWU traindrivers may have different ideologies, but they share Dick Turpin's aim - to gouge as much money as possible from citizens using the public highways.
Competition may eventually deal with the train drivers, but the farming organisations' opposition to the National Roads Authority is of a different order. Not only are they holding up the State stagecoach for outrageous sums (refusing an offer of six times the current price per acre for agricultural land), but they are also attempting to steal the wheels from said stagecoach (by contesting the validity of the compulsory purchase process). As with Dick Turpin, the State must quash this hubris.
Farming organisations might remember two things. Firstly, farmers are the only economic group who live at home and do not travel to work each day. They have no experience of the danger and frustration involved in commuting to work. In terms of danger, the NRA has rightly mentioned that one year's delay in implementing the inter-city motorway programme might cause 50 additional deaths.
Even though agriculture now accounts for less than 5 per cent of national income, the rest of us rallied round to support farmers during the foot-and-mouth crisis this year. Weddings were postponed, social gatherings curtailed, in order to prevent the disease spreading. And unlike in Britain, where there was no such solidarity, the disease was contained. If the new outbreak in Northumbria migrates to Ireland, there will be no support this time for measures that protect agriculture but injure tourism and business.
If the farming organisations persist in their highway robbery and prevent the most important element of the National Development Plan from going ahead this September, it will never be forgotten. - Yours, etc.,
J. Jerome Casey, St Laurence Road, Chapelizod, Dublin 20.