FF backer set to benefit from proposed Tara route

international | miscellaneous | other press Monday February 28, 2005 17:54 by draoi

No wonder FF are backing the proposed route... they are knee-deep in property speculation.

Shopping centre developer owns motorway lands

27 February 2005 By Ciaran Buckley
More than 200 acres of land near the proposed M3 motorway in Meath has been transferred to the name of the Cathal McCarthy, the property developer who owns the Navan Shopping Centre.

The massive landbank has been transferred to McCarthy since April 2004, according to Land Registry records. The properties are beside the controversial interchange near the Hill of Tara.

The land is highly valuable given its proximity to the interchange and the M3.

Opponents of the current route of the new motorway argue that the 29-acre, flood-lit interchange will damage the Hill of Tara, a historical site.

They have also claimed that the interchange would bring pressure for commercial development in the area, causing further damage to Tara.

In the mid-1990s McCarthy and property developer Eamonn Duignan bought a property in Navan with Fianna Fail fundraiser Des Richardson and Frank Dunlop, the former government press secretary. Duignan, Richardson and Dunlop have no involvement in the land transfers near the interchange at Blundelstown.

Meath County Council planning director Kevin Stewart said there were no developments proposed for the area but that any plans would need to be considered as they were presented.

Michael Egan, spokesman for the National Roads Authority, said that although it was in favour of service stations being located on national roads near motorway interchanges, anyone applying for permission to build a service station would have to go through the normal planning process.

He said that any application for development near the Blundelstown interchange was likely to be viewed in the context of its proximity to Tara.

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqid=2713-qqqx=1.asp