How should Irish regional development be encouraged?

OTK

A lot of posters dismiss the various attempts at regional development: the NSS, the WRC and branchlines, Shannon stopover etc.

So how should the rest of Ireland outside Dublin be developed?

What would you do?

MLM

Bin the NSS and concentrate on developing the cities of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford, at least until 2030. Someting along the lines of the Buchanan report of 1968, which recommended concentrating on Cork and Limerick as National growth centres to counterbalance the growth of Dublin. Including Galway and Waterford would be feasible today. The present NSS only re-inforces the growth of Dublin.
Re-draw the de-centralisation plan and cluster several departments together in each of the above cities.
Create an planning and infrastructure authority free of political and business influence. One that will make decisions to encourage planned development, as opposed to encouraging development that makes a small number of individuals very wealthy. Back it up with extensive legal powers.
Just some ideas.

Bards

I 100% agree with everything you have said. For Example, does it make sense that the HQ of Environment is being decentralsied to Wexford whil a small branch office is being decentralised to Waterford? Especially when Waterford is the Gateway City and Wexford a hub town

I think they have got the whole decentralisation arseways

Schuhart

MLM wrote:

The present NSS only re-inforces the growth of Dublin.

Indeed, so long as we are clear that the problem is not Dublin but the unwillingness of the political process to tell Mayo to feck off.

MLM wrote:

Re-draw the de-centralisation plan and cluster several departments together in each of the above cities.

I’d agree with your overall approach – concentration on the cities. I would not favour the relocation of central government offices outside of the capital, as it achieves nothing apart from fragmenting public administration.

On the other hand, it certainly would be in order to consider how meaningful local government structures might be based around the cities. In other words, its pure bunk to think of the nation looking to Waterford for its environmental policy (why should environmental policy be framed 100 miles away from the national parliament). Its perfectly reasonable for Waterford to be the location where significant decisions are made about the delivery of health, education and other services in the South East.

Ripping Government Departments out of Dublin is just a legacy of a mindset that never quite got to grips with the idea that we’re an independent country and London is no longer our capital. I know people don’t mean it that way here, and that the mindset is largely unchallenged so I can understand why there’s so little regional advocacy for real decentralisation. But it is an utter irrelevance.

OTK

Dublin still seems to be growing in proportion to the rest of the country? Anyone know where I might find numbers to confirm this? As a Dubliner I'd love if jobs and investment started going to another Irish city. Dublin doesn't need any more traffic, any higher house prices, any more ringroads.

There seems to be a positive feedback effect associated with Dublin's growth - as it becomes ever bigger it becomes harder and harder to make a business case for the location of facilities anywhere else. Putting a facility in Dublin nearly always means you serve the greatest number of people and these facilities draw yet more people to live here.

markpb

OTK wrote:

Dublin still seems to be growing in proportion to the rest of the country? Anyone know where I might find numbers to confirm this? As a Dubliner I'd love if jobs and investment started going to another Irish city. Dublin doesn't need any more traffic, any higher house prices, any more ringroads.

If memory serves, the maps from the 2002 and 2006 census showed that the areas around Dublin (Meath, Kildare, Louth) were growing far faster than anywhere else, including Dublin. It's all Dublin though :-)

Like the other posters have said, concentrate on building up other cities and, at the same time, improve the transport facilities between those cities. The current policy seems to be to focus on everywhere at the same time which is costly and pointless.

Schuhart

OTK wrote:

There seems to be a positive feedback effect associated with Dublin's growth - as it becomes ever bigger it becomes harder and harder to make a business case for the location of facilities anywhere else.

I think it’s important to get out of the mindset that Dublin’s growth is a bad thing, and that denying Dublin necessary investment is a legitimate response to it. The ability of Dublin to compete with other international locations is crucial to national welfare. If we choke Dublin, we choke the country – which is effectively what the Shannon stopover did. The historical policy of denying Dublin necessary facilities is pure dangerous, as the IDA has tried to point out.

On the other hand, the block to promoting development in the regions really comes from the regions. Consider, for example, what blocks the development of regional hospital services is local demands to retain local hospitals preventing resources from being concentrated in locations with the scale to do more. The consequence is to perpetuate a dependence on Dublin. That’s where the focus of interest needs to be – not this idea of hamstringing Dublin.

MLM

Schuhart wrote:

I think it’s important to get out of the mindset that Dublin’s growth is a bad thing, and that denying Dublin necessary investment is a legitimate response to it. The ability of Dublin to compete with other international locations is crucial to national welfare. If we choke Dublin, we choke the country – which is effectively what the Shannon stopover did. The historical policy of denying Dublin necessary facilities is pure dangerous, as the IDA has tried to point out.

Agreed. The problem with Dublin is it is in danger of being choked by its own success. Its current rate of growth is unsustainable, and its consequences have now been felt for a number of years, eg horrendous traffic, insane commuting times and distances, overcrowded trains, ridulously overpriced housing. Concentrating more rescources on regional cities would actually improve the quality of life in the Greater Dublin Area, by relieving some of the pressure, and giving government a chance to provide proper infrastructure. Dublin is playing an expensive game of catch-up in terms of infrastructure at the moment, a situation made worse by poor planning, the most obvious example being the M50.

oscarBravo

Schuhart wrote:

Indeed, so long as we are clear that the problem is not Dublin but the unwillingness of the political process to tell Mayo to feck off.

Exactly why is it acceptable to tell Mayo to feck off? Why not tell Cork to feck off? Or Tallaght? Or the northside?

Maybe the EU should have told Ireland to feck off years ago instead of wasting valuable deutschmarks on structural funds.

I mean, seriously. If Kildare told Dublin to feck off and find its own water supply, how well do you think that would work out?

This regional snobbery puzzles the hell out of me.

markpb

MLM wrote:

Agreed. The problem with Dublin is it is in danger of being choked by its own success. Its current rate of growth is unsustainable, and its consequences have now been felt for a number of years, eg horrendous traffic, insane commuting times and distances, overcrowded trains, ridulously overpriced housing.

All those problems you said stem from years of bad planning and a lack of investment in infrastructure. Dublin isn't a big city, it's just a poorly designed and serviced city. There are plenty of larger cities that function well because infrastructure and planning were tied together in a sensible manner.

OTK

Schuhart wrote:

I think it’s important to get out of the mindset that Dublin’s growth is a bad thing, and that denying Dublin necessary investment is a legitimate response to it. The ability of Dublin to compete with other international locations is crucial to national welfare. If we choke Dublin, we choke the country – which is effectively what the Shannon stopover did. The historical policy of denying Dublin necessary facilities is pure dangerous, as the IDA has tried to point out.

Well would you prefer a decentralised population pattern to a centralised pattern? Imagine you could choose the future , would you go for
a) Dublin=1m, Cork=1m, Limerick=1m or
b) Dublin=3m, Cork 200k, Limerick 200k
or something else?

Maybe scenario a) would be better for national growth, maybe not. I guess a city with 3m people can support services and attract investment that 3 X 1m cities can't.

The UK and France have centralised population patterns while Germany, Italy and Switzerland have decentralised systems. Is one system inherently better?

I think I may have been looking at this in a black and white way: that Dublin's loss is the regions' gain. In fact Ireland could attract investment to multiple regions.

Schuhart

MLM wrote:

Concentrating more rescources on regional cities would actually improve the quality of life in the Greater Dublin Area, by relieving some of the pressure, and giving government a chance to provide proper infrastructure.

I think we’re all agreed that a regional development policy based around cities is the only feasible policy. But it will take time before investment in the regional cities makes any noticeable difference. That’s not to say we shouldn’t do it. Just that I think there’s no getting away from the need to fill the East’s infrastructure deficit in 'chase' mode. Mostly, people are just going to stay in Dublin, despite the mindless ‘look West’ posters trying to entice us away from the capital and into a one-off houses in Roscommon with septic tanks leaking into the drinking water supply.

OscarBravo wrote:

Exactly why is it acceptable to tell Mayo to feck off? Why not tell Cork to feck off? Or Tallaght? Or the northside?

I think the reason is quite clear. It’s because continuing to base our regional development policies on the idea that every town is a potential growth centre denies the regional cities the concentration they need to be able to become real growth centres. Telling Mayo to feck off is not snobbery. It’s bluntly confronting the mindset that holds up regional development. What town in Mayo has the necessary scale to be a development centre? And if you think Castlebar is the answer, why is the airport in Charlestown?

Cork City, on the other hand, does have the basic wherewithal to make it a potential counterbalance.

OscarBravo wrote:

Maybe the EU should have told Ireland to feck off years ago instead of wasting valuable deutschmarks on structural funds.

When you consider how we spent it, they probably should. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve an infrastructure deficit which suggests the structural funds left no real legacy. If memory serves, some of the structural money in the Agricultural sector was just paid out as cash grants to farmers as a gratuity for being farmers. Generally, it was seen as ‘free money’ that didn’t need to show any return. In fact, again if memory serves, it was only in the latter years that the European Commission started insisting that the money had to be distributed on the basis of some kind of an integrated plan.

OTK wrote:

I think I may have been looking at this in a black and white way: that Dublin's loss is the regions' gain. In fact Ireland could attract investment to multiple regions.

Bang on the money. There’s a whole language of ‘Dublin is sucking life from the country’, ‘relieve the pressure’ and so forth cloaks the reality that what we need to do is replicate the factors that make an city successful, not mutilate the capital in the hope that something will decide to step over the corpse. Dublin brings life into the country, which is slow to be recognised. Its sort of sad to see unthinking GAA allegiences and prejudices being given enough notice to actually impoverish the nation.

To be honest, I think the big losers from this kind of rhetoric are the regional cities as the ‘Dublin gets everything’ mindset leads to people thinking ‘put it anywhere so long as it’s not Dublin’. So Galway City ends up with an airport that can’t take jets, while Charlestown hosts an airport with a longer runway than Cork.

a) Dublin=1m, Cork=1m, Limerick=1m or
b) Dublin=3m, Cork 200k, Limerick 200k
or something else?

I'd suggest a plan that caters for Dublin's 'natural' growth, and aims to double the population of all the regional cities.

oscarBravo

Schuhart wrote:

Telling Mayo to feck off is not snobbery. It’s bluntly confronting the mindset that holds up regional development. What town in Mayo has the necessary scale to be a development centre? And if you think Castlebar is the answer, why is the airport in Charlestown?

...so, Mayo people should feck off?

Because that's essentially what your attitude comes down to. It's not about telling a geographical region to feck off, it's about saying that to the people who live there. I'm still at a loss to understand why it's ok to tell Mayo people that they'll have to up sticks and move to Galway or Dublin if they want a job, but it wasn't ok that Dublin people had to go to the US or the UK in the eighties for the same reason.

I mean, why invest in Dublin at all? Why not put the money where it's likely to yield real growth, like Paris or London?

Schuhart

oscarBravo wrote:

I mean, why invest in Dublin at all? Why not put the money where it's likely to yield real growth, like Paris or London?

If you genuinely have no preference between Dublin and London, and no sense of any kind of common citizenship with Irish people outside your county of residence, then frankly we just don't have a common basis for a discussion.

Frankly, I find the comparison of Mayo people moving to another location in Ireland as being equivalent to Irish people being forced to emigrate to the US, frequently illegally, incredible. Clearly if that's how you feel, then that's how you feel. But you've lost me.

MLM

oscarBravo wrote:

Exactly why is it acceptable to tell Mayo to feck off? Why not tell Cork to feck off? Or Tallaght? Or the northside?

Maybe the EU should have told Ireland to feck off years ago instead of wasting valuable deutschmarks on structural funds.

I mean, seriously. If Kildare told Dublin to feck off and find its own water supply, how well do you think that would work out?

This regional snobbery puzzles the hell out of me.

It's not a question of telling one region or another to feck off, its a question of using the rescources and wealth we have to benefit as many people as possible. For years rural areas of ireland and small towns have recieved more support per capita than people living in large Irish cities. Even Dublin in the 1970's and 1980's recieved very little support in terms of infrastructure and investment, a situation which has caused many repercutions in the present day.
This stems from a policy of promoting rural areas ever since the foundation of the State. While this may have been suitable back in the 40's and 50's, when Ireland was a predominately rural society, it is outdated today, now that most of us live in large urban areas. However, governments are afraid to alienate rural voters, voters who tend to be more well organised politically than urban voters (farmers organisations etc), by diverting funds to areas that need them more.
Hence you get the present NSS and decentralisation plans which, between them, try to accommodate every single town and city in the country. This has led to under-investment in cities such as Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford, as funds are diverted to keep everyone happy. This results in poor public transport, poor roads, and poor water supplies.

oscarBravo

Schuhart wrote:

If you genuinely have no preference between Dublin and London, and no sense of any kind of common citizenship with Irish people outside your county of residence, then frankly we just don't have a common basis for a discussion.

I'm not sure we have such a basis either, but for different reasons.

Schuhart wrote:

Frankly, I find the comparison of Mayo people moving to another location in Ireland as being equivalent to Irish people being forced to emigrate to the US, frequently illegally, incredible. Clearly if that's how you feel, then that's how you feel. But you've lost me.

I take it you've no sympathy for civil servants being forced to decentralise, then?

Schuhart

oscarBravo wrote:

I'm not sure we have such a basis either, but for different reasons.

Were you going to share those reasons? There's no reason why you should, but they aren't self evident to me.

oscarBravo wrote:

I take it you've no sympathy for civil servants being forced to decentralise, then?

I'm not trying to be clever when I say this, but I really don't follow what you're saying here.

MLM wrote:

Hence you get the present NSS and decentralisation plans which, between them, try to accommodate every single town and city in the country. This has led to under-investment in cities such as Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford, as funds are diverted to keep everyone happy. This results in poor public transport, poor roads, and poor water supplies.

A clear and reasonable position. For my own part, let me clarify lest it be misunderstood, when I say 'tell Mayo to feck off' what I mean is directing resources to best effect and not towards pointless projects like the Western Rail Corridor, which are the political equivalent of a robber doing €1,000 of damage to your house to get a €50 note you left on the kitchen table. If someone can explain to me why Mayo has a right to ignore the impact of outrageous demands on the rest of the community, I'll change my mind.

fly_agaric

oscarBravo wrote:

Maybe the EU should have told Ireland to feck off years ago instead of wasting valuable deutschmarks on structural funds.

I think you should use this argument again when even one of the cities (+ surroundings) in Ireland has the standard of infrastructure and public services you'd expect (and could probably have expected back in 1970 or so??) in a small to mid size French or German city.

Dublin itself [let alone any of the potential Dublin counterweight cities/regions in Ireland which are more the topic of the thread and who people seem to be arguing should be given priority over more rural areas when it comes to spending money for new infrastructure etc] is, well, not to be blunt, still a long ways behind FrancoGermany in infrastructure/public services terms IMO.:)