Heritage campaigners have delivered 2,000 submissions to the Oireachtas Transport Committee opposing plans to build a motorway through the historic landscape surrounding the Hill of Tara in Co Meath.
The submissions were collected by the Save Tara-Skryne Valley group at various locations throughout Ireland over the weekend.
The group is campaigning for a re-routing of the M3 motorway away from the Tara-Skryne Valley, which is rich with archaeology dating back to the Stone Age.
Vincent Salafia, a spokesman for the Save Tara-Skryne Valley group, said the argument against the current route of the motorway was based on economics as well as archaeological protection.
He said lengthy court battles and painstaking excavations mean the M3, in its current form, could not be completed before 2015.
“It would actually be cheaper and delivered quicker if they re-routed the motorway now,” he added.