IF the Irish authorities had pressed for EU aid to fund three light rail transit (LRT) lines in Dublin, rather than just two, there would be no crisis now over the European Commission's insistence on an independent review of whether Ballymun should be left out in the cold.

After all, the Government-sponsored Dublin Transportation Initiative had recommended a three-branch LRT network serving Tallaght, Dundrum and Ballymun as an integral part of its transport strategy for the capital. But, when push came to shove, a ceiling of £200 million was placed on the LRT programme - and Ballymun lost out,

Listening to Seamus Brennan, the Fianna Fail transport spokesman, on Morning Ireland yesterday, you would never have thought that this fateful decision to defer the Ballymun line indefinitely was made by the previous Fianna Fail Labour coalition, not by the present government. And as a TD for Dublin South, Mr Brennan will hardly be pleased if it's reinstated at Dundrum's expense.

The European Commission is enthusiastic about LRT in cities and, would undoubtedly have provided funding for the three-branch network, had the authorities here applied for it. However, if £300 million had been allocated for LRT in the National Development Plan, rather than £200 million, it would have meant shaving money from the roads programme, and this could not be done.

Ironically, it was an opinion column by Fintan O'Toole on this page last August which prompted the Commission to query the priorities for light rail. He had argued - quite rightly - that the reason why Ballymun had lost out was because it was too poor and, consequently, more dependent on public transport. Thus, it wasn't as pressing to provide its people with a better service.

At a meeting with Commission officials last November, CIE's light rail project team was quite surprised when a copy of O'Toole's column was produced by one of them - a German, as it happens. This official pointed out that job creation and the reintegration of the long-term unemployed were key objectives of the National Development Plan, and said this was surely an argument for Ballymun.

This point was made again yesterday by a spokeswoman for DG16 - the regional affairs directorate - when she said it had been made clear to the Irish authorities last November that the Commission wanted to carry out an independent, in-depth analysis of all three options

-Ballymun, Tallaght and Dundrum - before making a final decision on funding the LRT project.

Eamonn Brady, chief spokesman for Luas (as the project is provisionally named), said in response: "It's their money and they want to make sure that we're spending it in the right way. We say we are, having done our studies." And what the multi-criteria cost-benefit analysis by consultants Steer Davies Gleave showed was that Dundrum "performed better" than Ballymun.

THE simple reason is that one of the principal justifications for LRT is based on its ability to provide an attractive alternative to private cars, especially for peak-time commuters. And, since the catchment area of the old Harcourt Street railway line has a much higher level of car ownership than the catchment area of Ballymun, naturally it scored higher in the analysis.

"The simple reason is that serving disadvantaged areas doesn't stack up in terms of getting cars off the road," said one source close to the project. "All it means is that the people will transfer from buses to trams." This would do nothing for Dublin's "modal split" - the different modes chosen by commuters to get into town - which is heavily biased in favour of cars.

Whatever about its reservations on this score in terms of social equity, it was emphasised yesterday by the Luas spokesman that the Commission was merely querying the "prioritisation" of the lines, not the project itself. Asked if its intervention meant the project was now "on.hold", he said that it was still a case of "business as usual" for CIE's light rail project team.

Detailed design work for the Tallaght and Dundrum lines is proceeding. An environmental impact statement (EIS) is due by the end of June. Legislation to allow the project to proceed is being finalised and the expectation is that it will be passed before the summer recess. And a full-scale public inquiry has been pencilled-in for September.

However, the project is already at least 18 months behind schedule partly due to the political crisis in, change in government. And it cannot afford to lose any more time if it is to meet the deadline for spending the EU money - which amounts to, 65 per cent of the total cost - before it runs out in the year 2000.

"If the Commission said Ballymun had to be done, otherwise we would get no money, then I suppose Ballymun would be done," Mr Brady said. "It would set us back a bit, but not that much, and we would get an extension of time to spend the money." But the mid-term review of the Operational Programme on Transport comes next April, and LRT is still only at the planning stage.

Nonetheless, because of the pressing deadlines, the project is at the equivalent of five minutes to midnight, in planning terms. The Ballymun line, if the Commission resurrects it, exists only as a line on a map. Detailed design work would have to be done and the contents of the EIS would require radical alteration to accommodate such a major change in direction.

Furthermore, in typically Irish style, all sorts of interests have been crawling out at the 11th hour as light rail for Dublin comes closer to being realised, some of them intent on throwing spanners in the works. It's not just the heavy disruption to streets during the construction phase, but a whole range of other arguments about how it might not be the best option after all.

THERE is a lot of silly talk of how Dublin was left with a network of narrow streets because it wasn't seriously bombed during the second World War and therefore doesn't have big wide boulevards like some continental cities with LRT systems. Yet a visit to Strasbourg or Grenoble would demonstrate that this kind of argument simply bears no relation to reality.

The canvassing for such alternatives as articulated buses and even an underground has become so intense that some politicians are buckling under pressure. Luas sources accuse them of "playing politics" with the issue and say there are very few who are prepared to come out openly and say that what is required is leadership and a determination to get on with the job.

In the meantime, while the arguments continue, there are two light rail systems planned for Portugal which are "champing at the bit and ready to roll", as one Luas source put it; all they lack is EU funding. If, for one reason or another, Dublin falls at the last fence, the money already allocated for its long-promised LRT network may end up being spent in Portugal instead.