Regionalisation - Time to give Europe more power to intervene?

liammur

The regions are bearing the brunt of this recession.
This government seems bankrupt of ideas, and are unwilling and unable to solve this economic crisis, particularly at regional level.

Even their shambolic decentralisation programme is in disarray. There are 25 more counties out there!

Is it time we gave Europe more power and to intervene directly?

Some July unemployment figures:

Frightening to think there are over 41,000 people unemployed in Cork alone, and over 19,000 in donegal which doesn't have a huge population.

Cork, over 41,000
Kildare, over 17,000
Donegal, over 19,000
Limerick, over 20,000
Galway, over 23,000
Wexford, over 17,000

www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/labour_market/current/lregeo.pdf

Pete_Cavan

If you gave Europe the power to dictate where our investment goes, 100% of it would go to Dublin because this is where the greatest returns would be seen. EU would not have to worry about appeasing local people to win/keep a seat so decisions would be made purely on an economic basis. Therefore, we would see more investment in Dublin where there are economies of scale and the investment is justified.

liammur

Not sure pete.
Europe have done wonders for this country, just look at all the money they have contributed towards the road infrastructure.

Denerick

What kind of powers would you give to the EU? Most investment in this country that is not intended to support infrastructure is generated by Private Enterprise. I fail to see how the EU could have any relevance in this area. In fact the Irish government isn't doing so bad in infrastructure investment, we're pumping 5% of GDP into it at a time when we're literally on our knee's. I believe this is above the European average.

The bottom line is that Europe will inevitably work for European interests. Ireland will look for Irish interests. I'm a fan of a deeper and more integrated EU, but only in the protection of civil liberties and for foreign policy purposes. I don't want to see a European Welfare State. It should be the determination of independent entities to decide how their social programmes or lack thereof are funded...

liammur

I get the impression that this crisis is beyond the government.

This is true 'The bottom line is that Europe will inevitably work for European interests.' Wouldn't we better off to be part of those european interests, rather than mucking about and talking ourselves into and out of recessions.

Denerick

liammur wrote: »

I get the impression that this crisis is beyond the government.

This is true 'The bottom line is that Europe will inevitably work for European interests.' Wouldn't we better off to be part of those european interests, rather than mucking about and talking ourselves into and out of recessions.

Your point would be valid if Europe came through this recession unscathed. Spain has 20% unemployment and Greece almost went bankrupt. Most of Eastern Europe saw slumps equivilent to Ireland (THis is because they adopted the same economic strategy as us - they used us a model for Christs sake!)

The Irish have a canny ability to view themselves as somehow unique or exceptional.

liammur

Well we are in the PIGS category.

Denerick

liammur wrote: »

Well we are in the PIGS category.

To be fair, we're widely considered to be one of the better Piigs. For one thing we're sorting out our national finances (We didn't have the cash for stimulus) and we're looking far better down the line to balance our budget than either the Greeks, Portugese, Italians or Spanish. I'm relatively optimistic about our long term chances. We won't see a Celtic Tiger ever again but full employment is a possibility.

liammur

I admire your optimism

Our saving grace was our low level of debt until recently. But now we're borrowing ridiculous amounts of money for the forseeable future. Interest payments alone will be in the billions per annum.

Sleepy

If the regions want to catch up to Dublin's infrastructure and employment levels, the fact is they're going to have to create the jobs organically and / or become large urban areas themselves (e.g. plan development to ensure that Wexford and Waterford grow together over time). The most successful areas in terms of employment in Ireland are also generally the most urban and I don't think this is unrelated.

Rural areas or small towns masquerading as cities are never going to be able to compete with cities for FDI without subsidies and, in a way, why should they? Should urbanites be forced to subsidise job creation for those who don't want the city life? There are numerous advantages to living outside of a large urban area: cheaper property / rent, generally lower prices as a result of this (compare the price of a pint in a rural pub to one bought near Grafton Street), cleaner air, less noise pollution etc.

The cost of these advantages is limited services or services that are more expensive as they fail to benefit from economies of scale and lower local employment leading to either unemployment or towns being reduced to 'commuter town' status.

Socially, it's not desirable for us all to live in cities or for towns to become satellites of the cities and lie empty from 8am until 7pm but I don't think that subsidising things for those that choose to live in rural areas is a fair or desirable thing.

liammur

Sleepy, some good points there.
The issue of subsidies is a thorny one, eg, we think we should get them off europe, but then regions shouldn't get subsidies.
Germans don't like having to subsidise the rest of europe either!

RichardAnd

Denerick wrote: »

To be fair, we're widely considered to be one of the better Piigs. For one thing we're sorting out our national finances (We didn't have the cash for stimulus) and we're looking far better down the line to balance our budget than either the Greeks, Portugese, Italians or Spanish. I'm relatively optimistic about our long term chances. We won't see a Celtic Tiger ever again but full employment is a possibility.

All PIIGS are equal, but some PIIGS are more equal than others

Sorry, couldn't resist that paraphrase.

Denerick

liammur wrote: »

Sleepy, some good points there.
The issue of subsidies is a thorny one, eg, we think we should get them off europe, but then regions shouldn't get subsidies.
Germans don't like having to subsidise the rest of europe either!

The days of German money subsidising roads to nowhere in Ireland have been gone for some time. We've been a net contributer over the last decade as far as I know.

ei.sdraob

Denerick wrote: »

The days of German money subsidising roads to nowhere in Ireland have been gone for some time. We've been a net contributer over the last decade as far as I know.

no we were/are not

lasnoufle

ei.sdraob wrote: »

no we were/are not

Correct -> http://www.finfacts.com/irishfinancenews/article_1012675.shtml

liammur

€41 billion, i knew we did very well out of europe, didnt think it was that much though!

ei.sdraob

Yeh we wont be becoming a contributor any time soon either while having the largest deficit in EU and developed world

liammur

You can say that again!! A lot of that EU money is wasted on farmers.

Anyone giving us money can kiss it goodbye.

I'd still like europe to get more involved in the running of our country.

Scarab80

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Yeh we wont be becoming a contributor any time soon either while having the largest deficit in EU and developed world

Unfortunately it has nothing to do with deficits and everything to do with GDP/GNP. Previous predictions for Ireland to become a net contributor were 2013. I'm not sure how recent falls in GDP willl affect this however given the new enlarged europe we still rank way above other countries in terms of GDP.

By the way, the last european accounts for 2008 show a net flow into Ireland of 750m. Also of interest of the 40bn received from the EU in our history, 80% of it relates to payments under the Common Agricultural Policy.

View

liammur wrote: »

The regions are bearing the brunt of this recession.
This government seems bankrupt of ideas, and are unwilling and unable to solve this economic crisis, particularly at regional level.

Even their shambolic decentralisation programme is in disarray. There are 25 more counties out there!

Is it time we gave Europe more power and to intervene directly?

I think you'll find that the response (from Europe) would be "Why don't you give your regions 'more power to intervene directly' and let them run all government services in their own areas ?" - or, were they to be less polite, "Why on earth do only the 15 members of your cabinet get to make meaningful decisions on how the state is run while everyone else is left powerless to do anything useful?"

PS "Decentralistation" as it is used in an Irish political sense, should be more correctly called "Relocation" as it mere involves moving highly-centralised government bodies from one location to another. "Decentralisation" actually means taking power away from the central bodies and giving it to local or regional bodies.

liammur

I'd prefer if they got rid of the cabinet, and they made the decisions !

interesting re the term decentralisation.