Letter to the Editor: Forcing anything against the will of the people will never work

(Editor, Meath Chronicle)

Dear sir - In recent times it was heart-warming to see literally thousands of people from all over County Meath, from across a wide age spectrum, from the school children to their parents and grandparents in unison with one goal in mind. To seek, find and collect someone else’s discarded litter, which some related that items collected were outdated since the 1970s, such was the age of this problem.

Having seen this Meath County Council driven Green Kilometre Scheme initiative been such a success, where by their own admission it was a huge success with thousands of bags of litter and rubbish retrieved from the 'Highways & Byways' of the county and all the volunteers in the various communities across the county deserve sincere thanks. Albeit I’m sure the reward they sought was for a greener and more beautiful county, which is on the doorstep of many large urban areas and is on the pathway to many large corporate sectors.

A few lessons learned from this is the we the people of our Royal County, whether we were born here three, four or five generations back, or whether many have moved and made their home here in recent years, is that it’s worth keeping green and beautiful to a point of making their voice heard in a loud and meaningful way, when challenges to the greening of the valley occurs.

To reach the point of this letter, for the past dozen years or more there has been an ongoing campaign to force or ask EirGrid to underground their proposed high voltage network of cables that are planned to run through the county hanging from very high pylons.

The issue was never with pylons, but what they carry and now with this new energy countywide by the people for the people who live in the county to keep it green and beautiful, I would appeal to all our politicians who I believe have the genuine interest of their constituents at heart, to gainfully engage once more with EirGrid and whatever political corridors even at this point, as I do believe that sometimes in reaching the summit of any challenge it requires both parties to take a step back and re-engage for the best of all concerned.

Forcing anything against the will of the people will and has always left long term problems in rural communities.

Yours,

Stephen Ball,

Bohermeen.