A leading business group has urged councillors to increase Local Property Tax to fund the expansion of dublinbikes.
The hugely successful scheme is celebrating its 10th anniversary today but Dublin Chamber claim the roll-out of additional stations across the city has been too slow.
The group's Head of Communications, Graeme McQueen, has urged county councillors to reconsider the current 15% applied to LPT for each of the last five years.
He said: "dublinbikes is one of the most successful bike sharing schemes in the world.
"Over the past 10 years almost 28 million trips have been taken on dublinbikes, with 67,000 people now subscribing to the scheme. Given the scheme’s huge success, it is disappointing that its continued expansion has been so slow.
"Plans have been there for years to expand the scheme into the suburbs. But, despite the huge popularity of the scheme, there are still far too many areas within an easily cyclable distance of the city centre where there is no access to dublinbikes.”
The Chamber claims limiting the reduction in LPT to 10% would generate €4m in revenue for the council.
This would be enough to finance the development of 43 new stations across the city and provide an additional 290 bikes.
Mr McQueen added: “A complaint we hear regularly from businesses and residents in Dublin is that they do not know where their property taxes and commercial rates are spent.
"Ring-fencing LPT money for dublinbikes would provide the people of Dublin with a tangible way of seeing where their money is being spent - and in a way that will greatly benefit their lives.
“It makes sense that the future expansion of dublinbikes should be concentrated in high density residential areas.
"This could include areas on the southside such as the Coombe, Dolphin’s Barn, South Circular Road, Harold’s Cross, Rathmines, and Drimnagh. On the northside, Cabra, Stoneybatter, Navan Road, Fairview, Phibsborough and Drumcondra would benefit hugely from having dublinbikes stations."
