A car park lobby group is protesting its exclusion from a new Dublin City Council committee designed to steer city transport policy, and has accused the Green Party of “gerrymandering” the group.
The Mobility and Public Realm Committee will meet on Wednesday for the first time, following last June’s local elections, to set out its agenda for improving the city’s streets over the next four and a half years.
The previous transport committee was instrumental in the development of the Dublin City Transport Plan which introduced restrictions on private traffic in the city centre and resulted in improvements in bus times.
The committee is made up of councillors as well as sectoral representatives with an interest in transport, traffic and access issues. Members of the previous transport committee included representatives of the Dublin Cycling Campaign, disability organisation Headway, community group Community Pillar, and business groups Dublin Chamber, Dublin Town and the Irish Parking Association (IPA).
The new committee as includes community group the Berkeley Road Area Residents Association, disabled persons’ organisation Voice of Vision Impairment, Dublin Cycling Campaign, Dublin Commuter Coalition, Irish Doctors for the Environment and Dublin Town, but not the IPA.
The IPA has accused the Green Party of “gerrymandering” the committee in the selection of members which “excludes the motorists’ voice”.
The IPA had been represented on the transport committee since 2016 and had applied to join the new mobility committee, but was not selected, its representative Keith Gavin said.
“IPA regularly opposed planned traffic restriction measures including the recent Dublin City Centre Transport Plan and, while extremely disappointed by our exclusion from the new committee, it is hardly surprising as it is now dominated by the Green Party and fellow councillors who are largely unsympathetic to the concerns of private motorists and the negative economic impact that their anti-motorist policies are having on the city centre business community,” Mr Gavin said.
The decision to exclude the “only advocate” for motorist amounted to “gerrymandering” he said through the “clear suppression of the representation of any opposition to the prevailing political views of the committee members.”. This would “inevitably result in even more biased decision-making in this important policy area”.
Green Party councillor Janet Horner, who chairs the committee said there was “no conspiracy” to exclude Mr Gavin and the same process had been used to select members as previously.
A cross party group of councillors is represented on the committee and they collectively chose four sectoral representatives, while two representatives are selected by the Public Participation Network.
She added that motorists who do need to drive in the city are among the beneficiaries of the reduction in traffic and a safer road environment. “The parking association does not represent motorists, it represents businesses that own car parks. It is not the voice of people driving cars,” she said.
