Angry scenes erupted yesterday at the site of the new M3 motorway at Rath Lugh, near Tara as protests reached a climax with one protestor chaining herself into a tunnel, causing work to be halted.

Demonstrators near the national monument were served with notice to move from the site yesterday morning, prompting a number of other protestors to chain themselves to overground obstacles at the scene.

Supporters of Lisa 'Squeek' Feeney claim she is chained by the neck to a car jack - the main structural support of the tunnel - and any attempts to try and remove her will cause the tunnel to collapse. They said she is carrying out the action to illustrate the unstability of the area around the monument and the possible damage to it by the movement of construction equipment.

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A council spokesman said yesterday that after assessing the tunnel, fire officers decided attempting a forcible entry would pose a threat to Ms Feeny's life. The fire chief assured protestors that a removal would not be attempted.

In an interview with the Irish Times, Ms Feeny described the tunnel as "grand". She said: "I'm prepared to stay here for months."

Protestors claim that diggers were using the area as a short cut because they had not been able to get licences to drive over the roads. Therefore, they claim, the tunnel and the monument were in danger of collapse.

However, the National Roads Authority has said the construction work is not encroaching on the footprint of Rath Lugh and is necessary in order to install a wall that will protect the monument and any delay in the project would cost the taxpayer €330,000 per week.

A spokesman for the NRA said the protesters are putting their lives at risk: "There was a notification from the contractor, Meath County Council and the gardai to the protesters to evict the site that they were in because work needed to commence in the area, and we didn't want them to be put in harm's way so we asked them to pack up their things," said the spokesman.

"They would not move and they were not going to move, then they were jumping on equipment, running around and interfering with equipment so it escalated exponentially."

Meanwhile, a High Court bid by protestors to halt the motorway work was rejected yesterday.

(VB)