The Governments decision in November of 2011 to cut the capital budget by €750m in 2012 was a devastating blow to our economic recovery. One of the projects that was directly affected by the Governments decision was Metro North. At the time the Government indicated that the Metro North underground service to Dublin Airport would be indefinitely deferred. In 2007 Dublin City Councillors voted to introduce a development levy scheme which would apply to any new developments along the proposed Metro North route, this scheme is still in operation and DCC has collected over €3m in levies under this scheme.
I have raised this issue a number of times at City Council because I believe it is an unfair penalty and is suppressing development along the route. The creation of a levy scheme such as this is a reserved function of the City Councillors i.e. Councillors approve the scheme and councillors can amend/cancel the scheme. At the July ’12 meeting of the Central Area Committee I formally put a put a motion calling for the scheme to be suspended, the €3m refunded and only to be reactivated if or when Metro North gets the go ahead from the Government. Unfortunately neither Labour nor Fine Geal Councillors would support my motion so it was defeated. I believe it is wrong for the local authority to be collecting significant sums of money under false pretences, to hold on to the money when the reason for collecting it no longer exists and the Labour and Fine Geal councillors in the Central area did the area a great dis-service by refusing to rectify this situation. I will continue to work to have this unfair levy abolished. Mary
