Residents want their say on agency board

I HAVE been informed that the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, is proposing to amend the Grangegorman Development Agency Bill to allow the Dublin city manager to nominate the residents’ representative on the board of the agency.

This would be a grave injustice and would create a conflict of interest, as the city manager’s interests and the residents’ interests are often in conflict.

It is perplexing how the city manager, who knows little or nothing about our neighbourhood, could choose someone who would be representative of our community.

Furthermore, if the city manager nominates our representative, he will have two nominations on the board, the Department of Health has two and I believe the Dublin Institute of Technology also has two.

So there is no reason why the residents, who have the greatest stake in the project, should not nominate two representatives themselves.

The minister is also proposing to expand the neighbourhood to the Dublin city council electoral areas of north inner city and Cabra/Glasnevin.

This area stretches miles beyond the neighbourhoods surrounding Grangegorman.

I cannot over-emphasise the importance of this question to our community and it is vital that we choose who represents us in any forum.

Pirooz Daneshmandi

Chairperson

Rathdown Road & District Residents Association

3 Marne Villas

Rathdown Road

Dublin 7