Anger as public meeting is cancelled
January 1996
MEMBERS OF the public reacted angrily to the un-announced cancellation of a public hearing into the planned dual carriageway from Tralee to Ballycarthy Cross which was due to be held on Tuesday morning.
Gerald O’Callaghan from Tralee said this was another symptom of bureaucracy.
“These people seem to think that they can do what they like,” he said.
Tralee artist Jeremy Tyndale who is opposed to the development said he had distributed over 150 leaflets in his local area inviting people to attend the inquiry and it was very disappointing that it then did not take place.
“If you announce that there is going to be a public meeting, you ask for public representation, the public have a right to be informed if it is cancelled,” he said.
Lorna Gleasure from Kilflynn was also angry with the Department of the Environment for not making an announcement about the meeting. #
“It should have been on Radio Kerry at least,” she said.
The Department of the Environ ment placed press advertisements earlier this month, announcing details of a ‘public local inquiry’ into the objections to plans to build a dual, carriageway from Tralee to Ballycarthy cross. The inquiry was cancelled during the week prior to that date but no public announcement was made to that effect.
A spokeswoman for Kerry County Council said that the council had nothing to do with the cancellation of the meeting. She said it had been arranged by the Department of the Environment in order to meet with objectors to the proposed development or with solicitors representing them.
She said it was understood that the solicitors concerned had asked for more time and that it had been cancelled at their request.
A Department of the Environment press office spokeswoman confirmed that the meeting had been cancelled on Thursday January, 11.
She said the Department did not place press advertisements announcing the cancellation of the meeting because “we would not have had time at that stage to put notices in the paper.”