Green Party: We'd create national park for Dublin
A new national park should be built in the Dublin Mountains to ensure a better quality of life for citizens of the capital, the Green Party said today.
The party’s councillors today pledged to encourage more green public areas in the city through an alliance of the capital’s authorities.
Party leader Trevor Sargent put forward proposals, including gaining blue-flag status for every beach in Dublin Bay, which councillors would work together to push if elected in June.
“Dublin is a unique capital in Europe set between the mountains and the bay. It should be exploited,” said Green party MEP, Patricia McKenna.
“We will restore our most important civic spaces by redesigning them around people rather than the motorcar.
“It shouldn’t be a place that people just come into to work and then leave.”
At the launch of the party’s Dublin Manifesto for the local elections, the candidates signed a pledge to emphasise public transport and promote Dublin city as a clean area for citizens.
Ms McKenna said the way to revitalise the area is to encourage well-planned communities to develop in the city centre.
The party’s manifesto proposed a coastal walkway and cycleway from Bray to Balbriggan, blue-flag status for every beach on Dublin Bay and a new public library to promote it as the ‘city that reads’.
A candidate running in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown and Dundrum areas, Ciarán Fallon, said the party would be proposing a national park set in the Dublin Mountains.
He said a large amount of the land is owned by the forestry company Coillte and maybe they could come to some sort of agreement.
The planned alliance of Green Party councillors across the Dublin authorities would also work to improve public transport.
But Ms McKenna said the new light rail system, the Luas, would not go far enough.
“For us it is coming late. It should have been here 10 years ago. There are not enough lines and they aren’t integrated throughout the city,” she said.
“It is getting more and more dangerous for people to cycle to work. We want to tackle that,” she added.
The local election candidates said that recycling brings jobs into the economy and it should be emphasised, rather than landfills or incineration.
“We have done studies in Europe comparing landfills and incinerators to recycling. Recycling creates a good amount of jobs.
“It is needed, particularly in Dublin. It is unacceptable to pay for rubbish collection without a proper recycling plan.”
Mr Sargent also said the alliance would aim to put an end to corruption in planning in the city and preserve green areas like the Liffey, Dodder and Tolka valleys.
Robbie Kelly said: “The only way to do it is to change the way people finance campaigns.
“People who fund more political parties are the people who benefit from it at the moment.
Mr Kelly said Fingal County Council knows of several hundred hectares of residentially rezoned land.
“If anyone wants any more proof of hoarding of land we have it there.”
The party also called for a directly-elected mayor for the Dublin authorities.
“We will be pushing for a directly-elected mayor for a five-year term,” Mr Sargent said.
“We are sick of tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee mayors skipping in and skipping out with support from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael,” he added.
