Green Party leader Eamon Ryan today criticised the government's intention to abandon plans for an elected Mayor, abandon public transport projects and introduce an anti-urban property tax. "

Fine Gael and Labour are doing Dublin down," he commented. "They don't understand that holding back the city will effect the whole country. Dublin is competing with one hand tied behind its back with other global cities which have effective directly elected leadership rather than our dysfunctional city model.

"Whatever other Local Government reforms Phil Hogan comes up with tomorrow, his reported decision not to proceed with a Dublin Mayor will be a step in the wrong direction. The lack of real transparency under the current system allowed corrupt planning become the norm. The lack of real authority allowed transport agencies fight each other for years rather than make integrated ticketing happen. The lack of real accountability allowed city managers spend millions on public relations consultants telling us we needed a waste incinerator that was the wrong size, using the wrong technology and in the wrong place.

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"It is a tough time in our country but out of the crisis we should at least expect that we would learn from our mistakes and get proper public reform. Our worst luck is to have Phil Hogan in charge, who seems to have an old fashioned view of the world."

"The form of property tax he intends introducing will see the people of Dublin paying the bulk of the bill but having no control of the till. The Revenue Commissioners will have charge of that with little interest in urban development and design. What local government spending that does happen will go through the current centralised patronage system which is not transparent, not accountable and where the spending criteria are set in the Doctor James Reilly school of local politics. We will have no Dublin Mayor to stand up for the city and no-one to cry foul when there is no strategic vision in how things are planned.

"The problem for the country is that if Dublin stops functioning, then the whole country will end up paying. This Government has abandoned plans for major public transport projects in the city such as the Dublin Metro. This was despite the fact that it was included in the four year plan agreed with the Trokia and that funding was available from both the European Investment Bank and the new 'Connecting Europe Facility' to pay for it.

"Without a proper public transport system, all the roads that lead to Dublin are going to come to gridlock on the M50, once the economic recovery starts to happen. The Government is putting all the stimulus money into new national roads that will only encourage yet more long distance car commuting to the Capital. They are even going to Brussels begging for a change in the European rules so that the Connecting Europe Facility can be spent on roads rather than on public transport and broadband and electricity grid infrastructure that it is meant to fund."

(CD/GK)