EU officials lobbied over Ballymun light rail link

A LIGHT RAIL system to Ballymun would be the key to the viability of a badly needed industrial development project on the north side of Dublin, a Dublin delegation informed the European Commission this week.

Mr Chris O'Malley and Mr Peter Davitt, of the North Dublin Development Coalition, met the official in the Commission's Regional Directorate responsible for Ireland, Mr Esben Poulsen, to make the case against deferring the third Dublin light rail route to Ballymun.

The delegation said that the north Dublin communities of Finglas, Cabra and Ballymun, with a total population of some 160,000, represented the largest concentration of social and economic deprivation in Ireland.

Two thirds of the adults in the area had left school by the age of 16 and overall unemployment, at 33 per cent, was more than twice the national average.

The members of the delegation said that consideration of the social effects of the light rail route, now under review by a consultant, should not only take account of improved access for workers from north Dublin to places elsewhere in the city. They emphasised that such a route could provide a lifeline to companies thinking of establishing in the area near Dublin Airport.

Mr O'Malley rejected the contention of the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, that the Ballymun route could not be built at the same time as the Dublin port access road and tunnel without causing traffic mayhem in the north inner city. It should be possible, he said, to look at an alternative northern route for the light rail system via Broadstone.

Mr Davitt said that they had been sympathetically received, although the Commission was unwilling to commit itself to any outcome ahead of the consultant's report, due in September.