N3 road (Ireland)

File:N3 national IE.png
Destinations (SE to NW)
On route / bypassed
County Dublin Dublin City Castleknock Blanchardstown County Meath Clonee Dunshaughlin * Ross Cross * Navan * Kells * Carnaross	County Cavan Lisduff Virginia New Inn Cavan Town Butlersbridge Belturbet County Donegal Ballyshannon
* To be bypassed 2010 by M3 Clonee–Kells.

The N3 road is a national primary road in Ireland, running between Dublin, Cavan and the border with County Fermanagh. The A509 and A46 roads in Northern Ireland form part of an overall route connecting to Enniskillen, and northwest to the border again where the N3 reappears to serve Ballyshannon in County Donegal.

Rush hour congestion between Navan and Dublin city is very heavy (up to 22,000 vehicles per day on parts of the N3 in 2002), and problems occur at most built-up areas between these points. A tolled motorway bypass replacement, the M3 motorway, is under construction for part of the N3 route and is scheduled for completion near the end of 2010. When this occurs the bypassed former N3 road will be reclassified as a regional road and will officially be known as the R147.

Route

The old N3, between Clonee and Dunshaughlin

The route is known as the Navan Road as it leaves Dublin, passing near the Phoenix Park's northeastern exit and bypassing Castleknock.

It passes through a major junction with the M50 motorway, consisting of a busy (and often grid-locked) grade-separated roundabout on the N3. It is currently being converted into a 'free-flow' grade separated interchange, as part of a major project to widen the M50 which will also remove the signal controlled Blanchardstown Roundabout from the route.

Having crossed the M50 the road bypasses Blanchardstown, Mulhuddart and Clonee with dual carriageway. The dual carriageway reduces to a single carriageway shortly past the Meath border and it passes through the often heavily congested Dunshaughlin village, Navan town (which is partially bypassed on an inner-relief road with traffic lights controlling junctions) and Kells in County Meath, before passing through Virginia and reaching Cavan Town. After Cavan town, the road continues past Butlersbridge and through Belturbet (both in County Cavan), the route then crosses the border with Northern Ireland, becoming the A509 to Enniskillen. The A46 road connects Enniskillen and the Donegal border, becoming the N3 across the border at Belleek, and connecting to Ballyshannon. From there, the N15 goes North to Donegal Town and Lifford, and south to Sligo.

N3 upgrade

The National Roads Authority in conjunction with Cavan and Donegal County Councils plan major improvements to the N3 route in Ulster. It is currently planned that the Virginia bypass will be developed as 12.5 kilometres of type two dual carriageway. Type two dual carriageway has reduced width or no hard shoulders and also a reduced width median. This approach significantly cuts land acquisition costs.

M3 motorway upgrade

Part of the present N3 route is due to be bypassed by the construction of 51 kilometres of new motorway. The M3 begins near the end of the existing dual carriageway outside Clonee and will terminate south west of Kells just before the N52. The entire scheme will not terminate at this point as a new realigned N3 will continue to bypass Kells before terminating near the County Cavan border. The scheme also includes the N52 Kells northern bypass. Thus when completed, the M3 will bypass Dunboyne, Dunshaughlin, Navan, and Kells.

Controversy

As of 2009 the motorway plan is contested because the route passes near the Hill of Tara and through the archaeologically rich Tara-Skryne valley or Gabhra. The planned route corridor was approved by An Bord Pleanála (Ireland's planning appeals board) in August 2003. The development is controversial, however construction is now nearing completion despite threats of further legal challenges.

Timeline

• 12 May 2005 Excavation licenses were approved by the Environment Minister Dick Roche permitting excavations to be carried out on sites of potential archaeological significance along the route of the motorway.

• 4 July 2005 Leave was granted to Vincent Salafia in the High Court to judicially review the decision of the Minister.

• 1 March 2006 The challenge by Mr. Salafia to the proposed route of the M3 motorway near the Hill of Tara monument was dismissed on all grounds by the High Court.

• 19 April 2006 Vincent Salafia announced that he was to appeal against the ruling to the Supreme Court and subsequently to the European Court of Justice if necessary.

• October 2006 After protracted negotiations with the authorities, Mr. Salafia announced that he was withdrawing his appeal to the Supreme Court.

• 7 March 2007 SIAC Ferrovial joint venture trading as Eurolink M3 signed a €650 million contract for the construction of the M3 motorway. This was the biggest road contract yet signed in Ireland.

• 4 April 2007 An Taisce applied for an injunction in the High Court to halt the construction of the motorway on the basis that the National Roads Authority had failed to draw up a 5 year national roads plan as required by section 18 of the Roads Act 1993. The application was refused. Among the reasons given was undue delay in bringing proceedings and that the application was not out of concern to ensure the law was complied with (as stated) but to block construction of the road. In late April 2007 An Taisce lodged an appeal in the Supreme Court against this decision. The case still awaits hearing before the court.

• 30 April 2007 The first sod of the M3 motorway was turned by the then Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen.

• 1 May 2007 Archaeological work was temporarily suspended on a section of the motorway after archaeologists were reported to have uncovered a potential site of major archaeological significance, an ancient wood henge at Lismullin in the Tara-Skryne Valley, calculated to be at least 4,000 years old, three times the size of a football pitch, evidently a site of ancient outdoor worship, an adjunct to the Hill of Tara, part of the entire Tara complex. Further work at this site was pending the assessment of the Director of the National Museum. The Director was soon after reported to have assessed the site and to have recommended excavation and preservation by record. The monument consisted of the remains of holes made in the ground by wooded posts and once exposed the Director pointed out that it would be impossible to preserve them.

• June 2007 Following a general election, Dick Roche, Minister for the Environment signed an order drafted under the National Monuments Act 1930-2004 directing Meath County Council to excavate the site and preserve the newly discovered monument by record in accordance with the expert advice he had received from the Director of the National Museum. On the same day Meath TD, Noel Dempsey, was announced as the new Minister for Transport. The Minister had on many occasions publicly expressed his personal support for the project. The new Minister for the Environment, John Gormley TD was expected to review the decision. Gormley is a member of the Irish Green Party, which opposed the route of the motorway during the 2007 election campaign, but then accepted the route in a deal which saw them enter coalition government with Fianna Fáil. The grounds Mr Gormley gave were that the authorisation was irreversible for legal reasons. The former chairman of An Taisce, Michael Smith has queried the legal basis for Gormley's stance. Minister Gormley appointed Newman and Wallace to a special committee to oversee archaeological work at the site. The committee also includes Prof Gabriel Cooney, Head of Archaeology at University College Dublin and representatives from the NRA and the National Monument's Service at the Department of the Environment.
• June 2007 The site was declared an endangered monument by the World Monuments Fund. Opponents to the road vowed to take further legal action against the archaeological directions. A similar action in the High Court was dismissed in 2006 in relation to the initial directions given in 2005. A small group of protesters continued to congregate at construction site entrances in the general Tara area and blockaded these access points on a number of occasions.

• 18 July 2007 Construction workers moved in to carry out preliminary works on the approved road scheme at Blundelstown, two kilometres from the Hill of Tara. Protesters tried to stop the works by blocking construction traffic. Seven protesters were arrested by Gardaí, four of whom were remanded in custody for a week until the next sitting of the district court after they refused to agree to bail conditions not to interfere with any site along the M3.

• 25 July 2007 The four protesters were released from custody having accepted the bail conditions not to interfere with any construction site or workers on the M3. Eleven other defendants were due to appear before a three day special sitting of Navan District Court on May 29, 2008 to answer charges including trespass, public disorder and in relation to blocking the free movement of traffic and failing to follow the lawful direction of a Garda.

• 7 August 2007 Excavation began on the site of the National Monument at Lismullin approximately 2.2 km from the Hill of Tara. Work on the remainder of the motorway continued.

• 22 August 2007 An Bord Pleanála directed that the excavation did not require fresh planning approval or a new environmental impact assessment as it was not a material change to the overall road scheme. The motorway had now completed every statutory approval process and construction was ongoing and progressing rapidly.

• 2 October 2007 Minister Gormley issued a temporary preservation order on the Rath Lugh monument in the Tara/Skryne valley on the advice of Conor Newman who cautioned that nearby works on the M3 may be undermining the stability of the earthwork. The minister is reported have to taken this action to allow the area to be structurally assessed to ensure the monument was not damaged. The order halted all works at the site, which is alleged to have been already damaged, although this is disputed.

• 23 January 2008 Progress on the construction was well advanced and notices were posted in the national newspapers advising of the imminent closure of sections of the existing N3 with traffic diverted to a new alignment of that road to be known as the R147.

• 26 January 2008 The Chairman of the National Roads Authority is quoted in national newspapers as saying the construction of the M3 is 36% complete after only 10 months and that the road is significantly ahead of schedule of its 2010 construction deadline. The road now appears likely to be open at some point between mid to late 2009 in line with its original envisaged Transport 21 opening date.

• 11 March 2008 Anti-roads protesters invade construction site at Rath Lugh National Monument and tunnel into the base of the monument. All removed bar one woman in a tunnel.

• 13 March 2008 Protesters' attempt to get High Court injunction to prevent work at the site fails. Giving judgement, Ms Justice Laffoy said a challenge to the route of the M3 had already been dismissed by the High Court and an appeal to the Supreme Court was withdrawn. She also said it was clear from the preservation order that there were substantial penalties for anyone who interfered with the national monument at Rath Lugh or to the buffer zone around it. The woman in the tunnel under the National Monument claimed to have chained herself to a car-jack supporting the tunnel roof and was then described by her supporters as "trapped".

• 15 March 2008 The woman Squeak left the tunnel she was 'trapped' in after a deal with the NRA which included NRA agreement that certain works would be suspended until 17 April.

• 18 March 2008 Trouble erupted between the protesters and Gardaí and work stopped in the area. Conflicting claims were made of violence by both sides. Arrests were made.

• 20 March 2008 NRA cancels the "deal" and begins work at site; within 24 hours the section of the ridge which the protesters had been occupying had been removed. It was described as the "last obstacle in the way of the M3".

Political considerations

In the run-up to the 2007 general election opponents of the route of M3 motorway called on the people of Meath to show their dissatisfaction with the route of the M3. An umbrella group of Save Tara organisations published an advert in The Meath Chronicle outlining each party's position on the motorway the day before the election and called on the people of Meath to give their preference to the parties which had policies to reroute the road out of the Tara/Skryne Valley. These parties included Labour, the Green Party and Sinn Féin. The people of Meath did not return any candidates from these parties to the Dáil, choosing instead to elect four Fianna Fáil TDs and two Fine Gael TDs. This was interpreted as a clear indication of local support for the motorway along its current route.

Motorway reclassification

On 30 September 2008, the Department of Transport announced the second round of proposed motorway reclassifications under the Roads Act 2007. A short section of the existing dual-carriageway N3 bypassing Clonee, from northwest of Mulhuddart to the start of the M3 toll motorway scheme, is affected by this. Following a public consultation process, on 10 July 2009 the Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, made a Statutory Instrument reclassifying this section of the N3 as motorway effective from 28 August 2009 . It will be the first section of M3 to come into being.

Motorway project details

• The most expensive single contract road project ever undertaken in Ireland coming in at approximately €650 million according to SIAC.

• It will be tolled at two locations, one point north of Navan and another point between Dunshaughlin and Clonee for 45 years running from 2007. The Government have the option to buy out this contract at any time.

• The price level of tolls is controlled by the Board of the NRA and they can reduce, increase or remove the tolls as they see appropriate (as is the case with every other toll road in Ireland e.g. Dublin Port Tunnel weekend price reduction). Should they lower the tolls on the M3 the government would have to make up the difference of what is owed yearly to Eurolink M3 Ltd through tax revenue. Thus Eurolink are guaranteed a certain agreed return from their investment and would not suffer from any reduction in toll revenue from either a toll reduction or the planned opening of the Navan rail line. The toll revenue is collected by a private company on behalf of the state as a means to pay the private sector consortium annually for their initial once off investment in constructing the road.

• It is the longest road project ever to be constructed in Ireland including nearly 100 kilometres of new or upgraded road including 49 km of new M3, 10 km of new N3, 20 km of new link roads and interchanges, and approximately 15 kilometres of local road improvements, footpaths, cycle lanes and new bridges.

• It was originally planned to open in 2006.

• An Bord Pleanála initially approved the project on 22 August 2003. Exactly 4 years later, on 22 August 2007, they directed that the excavation of the Lismullin monument did not require fresh planning approval.

See also

• Roads in Ireland
• Motorways in Ireland
• National secondary road
• Regional road
• National Development Plan
• History of roads in Ireland
• National Roads Authority

References

• Roads Act 1993 (Classification of National Roads) Order 2006 – Department of Transport

External links

• Official M3 website
• NRA project page for M3 motorway
• Zoney Irish Roads website
• Website of group of people working to re-route the M3
• BBC News article
• Washington Post article