Council for West questions greater urbanisation of Dublin

Council warns of greater urbanisation


Anton McNulty

THE Council for the West has questioned the rationale of having 2.5 million people living in the Greater Dublin Area within the next 15 years at the expense of development in the west of Ireland.
Population projections in recent research by urban economist Brian Hughes show that by 2070, more than half of Ireland’s population will be living in the Greater Dublin Area. This trend was questioned by SeΡn Hannick, Chairman of the Council for the West who asked was a ‘City State’ the best or only policy to be pursued ‘willy-nilly’.
In a week when the deferral of the proposed rail-line from Tuam to Claremorris was in the news, he added that in parts of rural Ireland the decline in population was significant and disturbing with communities struggling to retain their very fabric.
“Pledged expenditure in the West Region under the last National Development Plan again fell way short of target, the Atlantic Road Corridor has slipped behind schedule and the completion of the Western Rail Corridor is again long-fingered. The commitment to balanced regional development has gone out the window with almost €15 billion of the €39 billion going to public transport projects in Dublin City, while there’s going to be a cut of €250 million each year in the Capital Spending Programme for Agriculture.
“We know the country is in a sorry state. We know things have to be straightened out. But is it fair or just, honourable or sensible to bleed rural Ireland when it is most vulnerable?” he asked.
Mr Hannick said there had to be a better way to build a fairer, more evenly balanced and distributed society, and his Council challenged all the political parties to produce a blueprint that would address those fundamental issues.
“Otherwise we will drift along into a hotch potch of concrete and steel and humanity at complete odds with sound ideas, good planning and creative solutions that a country, intent on providing a fairer society of more balanced opportunities, should surely aspire to,” Mr Hannick warned.