Madam, - The Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan, says a metro for Dublin could not be built under present EU budgetary controls under the stability pact (The Irish Times, February 27th).
Once again this Government is attempting to use the EU as a scapegoat for its own poor policy decisions. If it had exercised restraint in public spending, had not dreamt up silly schemes to spend money, like the SSIA and benchmarking, if it had controlled public sector recruitment and managed the NDP with an ounce of competency, we could have a metro for Dublin and remain within the EU criteria.
It's ironic that this Government now kowtows to Europe, when a few years ago Mr McCreevy accused our EU partners of being jealous of our economic success and said their input was not welcome.
The EU is not responsible for the threat to the metro scheme; we can thank our own Government for that. - Yours, etc.,
P. MURRAY, Dublin 15.