Arthritis sufferer claims €800m road will damage her health

A MOTHER-OF-TWO with a debilitating illness moved out of a Limerick suburb to the countryside because the air quality would be better for her health.

But the day she collected the keys to her rural idyll, she was horrified to discover that a €800 million motorway was to be built at the bottom of her garden.

Maeve Smyth, who has rheumatoid arthritis (a chronic inflammation of the joints), told a Bord Pleanála oral hearing yesterday her disease can reduce life expectancy by 10 years, although modern medicine was trying to improve that.