Tara Skryne fears 'being fuelled'

Dear sir - The Tara Skryne Preservation Group would like to register deep distress at recent radio and newspaper reports of Meath county councillors rallying against the implementation of the Tara Skryne Landscape Conservation Area Plan. A campaign of scaremongering and misinformation is being perpetrated by FF, FG and Independent councillors through which allegations of land sterilisation, eviction and non-provision for planning of one off housing has been instigated. The Draft Plan is to go before the Council on 5th July for voting. Several Meath councillors, as well as Shane McEntee TD and Mary Wallace TD are, in our opinion, misrepresenting the facts which can be seen clearly outlined in the Tara Skryne Landscape Conservation Area Plan on Meath County Council's website. The Plan contains more than adequate reassurances on these very same issues. This is scandalous and reprehensible behaviour, unbecoming of elected representatives who are supposed to be working for the good of the community. Instead of informing and educating locals whose fears over the implementation of the plan are intensifying, they have been encouraging opposition to it with misinformation, inaccuracies and innuendo at a series of meetings in Tara Skryne, on LMFM radio and in local newspaper interviews. This is the first Landscape Conservation Plan to be drawn up anywhere in this country and was first announced by Dick Roche, the Minister for Environment in 2005. It was later endorsed by Meath councillors and included in the Meath County Development Plan 2007-2013. Many consultative meetings have taken place since with locals, stakeholders and experts in various fields yet it is only recently that objections have been raised and all before the deadline for submissions had even been reached. This suggests that the voices of those who prepared submissions for the Wednesday 16th June deadline will not be taken into account by these publicly elected politicians even before the planning process has been concluded. The Tara Skryne Preservation Group fully supports the principles outlined in the Plan believing it will be of great benefit to the local community by preserving the landscape rich in history and heritage for future generations, as well as promoting Meath as a Tourism and Heritage destination. We ask that the Meath Co Council team involved with this project, the Heritage Council and the Dept of the Environment assuage mounting fears amongst locals by counteracting the concerted campaign of negative propaganda which is currently in full sway. We can only assume that the real fears spreading in the community are being fuelled by developers in reaction to the prospect of a drop in revenue from not being able to proceed with inappropriate development within the Tara Skryne Valley. The Tara Skryne Preservation Group calls on our more responsible politicians to take the lead, to do what is right by coming forward to support the Plan for the present and future good of all. Yours, Carmel Diviney, Secretary, TSPG.