2013 has started with some good news for Dublin City. The City Council has an extra and unexpected €2.2m to spend this year and I want the money to be used wisely to support services to citizens and employment in the city.

On November 26th, 2012 the Lord Mayor and City Councillors of Dublin met in City Hall and agreed a budget for 2013. At that meeting, as leader of the Fianna Fail group and in the interest of good governance, I proposed that the meeting be deferred until after the National Budget was announced and the City Council advised of its funding allocation from National Government.

A majority of Labour and Fine Gael Councillors rejected and defeated our proposal to defer the meeting and they approved a budget for the city without having all the relevant information available to them. Now it transpires that Dublin City Council had over-estimated the cut it was to receive to its funding from National Government and has in fact an unexpected €2.2m extra to spend this year.

This is good news and all Councillors should engage with Dublin City Council management to ensure that the extra funding is spent wisely and used to deliver better services to the people of Dublin and support employment in the city.

As leader of the Fianna Fail group of Councillors I have requested the Lord Mayor of Dublin City to convene a special meeting of Dublin City Council so that we can make a new city budget for 2013.
I am interested to hear from constituents on how they would like the extra money to be spent, already some ideas include Homeless Services (DCC already spends more than €40m on Homeless Svces.), Bin Waiver for elderly, sick and unemployed, Tall Ships Festival in 2016, Moore Street/1916 Museum….how would you like to see the money spent ?  Drop me an email and let me know.  Mary