Environmentalist faces €600k bill for Hill of Tara challenge

An environmentalist who lost his court challenge to the routing of the M3 motorway near the Hill of Tara today had legal costs of up to €600,000 awarded against him.

Vincent Salafia said he was facing the prospect of bankruptcy in the wake of Judge Thomas Smyth's ruling at the High Court.

“If I don’t pay up fairly quickly, they will bring bankruptcy proceedings against me. It obviously will be a huge factor in my ability to own or direct a corporation. It will affect my ability to make a living, to provide for my family, so really it’s basically a very punitive judgement.”

But Mr Salafia said he would be appealing to the Supreme Court and added that the costs might not be awarded against him if he was successful.

The environmental campaigner, from Dodder Vale, Churchtown in Dublin, claimed that he took the action on public interest grounds and that there was no personal gain involved.

“A national survey last year showed that 70% of Irish people were against the route of this road and wanted this road re-routed,” he said.

But in the High Court, Judge Smyth said he did not accept that Mr Salafia had been acting in the public interest.

He said the Trinity College student had failed to establish that there were any national monuments on the route of the €600m M3 motorway between Clonee and Kells and added that he had not taken part in the oral hearings held by Bord Pleanala into the routing of the motorway.

“If he was bona fide motivated by public interest concern, it is inconceivable to me that he failed to avail of these many opportunities,” he said.

Judge Smyth noted that people who used the road in the area or lived in the locality had not brought any proceedings against the routing of the motorway or filed any affidavits supporting Mr Salafia.

The court had heard that when Judge Smyth dismissed Mr Salafia’s challenge as unfounded on March 1, he ruled that the campaigner had no legal standing to take the case and also criticised the delay in taking the case.

Judge Smyth said today that he was satisfied that Mr Salafia had acted out of a personal dislike of the road.

He said that while Mr Salafia had a right to act as a public objector, the public purse had the right not to be disadvantaged when ample opportunities were provided for people to object.

Lawyers for the State, the National Roads Authority and Meath County council had argued that it would not be in the public interest for Mr Salafia to be granted his costs.

Judge Smyth refused Mr Salafia’s application for his costs and awarded the State, Meath County Council and the National Roads Authority their costs.

Junior counsel, Colm MacEochaidh, representing Mr Salafia, applied for a stay to be put on the costs but Judge Smyth said this was a matter for the Supreme Court.

Archaeological work on the excavation of 38 sites discovered near the route of the M3 motorway is ongoing but construction work has not yet begun.

The Tarawatch group held a protest at the site in the wake of the High Court ruling today.