Greater Dublin Area

lucernarian

Hello all,

Many people seem to refer to the GDA as a region of prosperity. This apparently is a place of low unemployment, good infrastructure and a wide range of public services.

The National Spatial Strategy tries to look at and cool the growth of Dublin that is nearing urban-sprawl proportions while trying to earmark certain places for developement so that they can be centres of population growth independent of cities in their vicinity. Instead, the NSS has created a "No-man's land" around Dublin stretching up to 40 miles from it. The NSS has completely backed down on addressing the problems of the Greater "Dublin" Area.

With the way things are going, we will have a situation similar to London. Towns up to 60 miles away are being labelled as "dormitory towns", existing only to supply housing and services to populations. There was an interesting article on Primetime last night which discussed the issue of one-off housing in rural areas. Areas moderately close to Dublin have similar problems as the west. Rural communities are being swallowed up by huge influxes of people in housing estates that look out of place in the countryside. The people who move there are usually interested in their own lives and events on a more national or international scale. The communities which once existed there now exist in name only. These areas then grow to become suburbs of cities. Areas around Galway and Dublin have that problem in particular.

While the NSS is a good idea, it badly needs improvement. The government should urgently solve this problem in the short-term. Places which used to exist independently of Dublin e.g. Drogheda, Navan, Mullingar etc. are now being swamped with extra people, while little or no employment is generated. There is a chronic lack of services in many of the GDA areas. Hinterlands in these areas with vibrant communities are now being swallowed up. I have no problem with Dubliners or any other people for that matter moving to places 30-40 miles from their place of work, provided they can have some sort of a positive impact on society.

I am wondering why this is not an important political issue when what is happening is having profound effects on our society.

All the best-:)

ishmael whale

You are absolutely right, this is a crucial issue facing us and it is only grudgingly getting attention. Part of the problem is that recognising that growth will centre on Dublin is politically difficult, as the other side of this coin is acceptance that other areas will not grow. So we perpetuate this fiction that the discomfort people experience is because Dublin's growth is unmanagable, rather than unplanned and unsupported. The official response is to pretend there is some way growth can be chopped into little pieces and delivered into every little town.

I honestly don't know how more sense will be brought to this debate. Official recognition of the problem seems remote - is it really feasible for the Government to plan on the basis of Dublin's share of the national population increasing from 40% to 45%? And yet Dublin's continued development is the key to national welfare. In a recent article in the Irish Times, based on CSO figures, it was shown that seven counties whose tax payments in 2001 did not even cover the social benefits paid out to their less-well-off inhabitants. This means they were unable to make any contribution whatever to public services or investment. These seven counties are Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo, Longford, Kerry, Wexford and Carlow. Dublin provides 55 per cent of the net national tax take, the counties around Dublin contribute almost 20 per cent, and Cork provides almost 10 per cent. Clearly the continued success of Dublin is vital to national wellbeing, and policies need to reflect this.

My sinking feeling is that we will continue to waste resources on unneeded infrastructure in the regions while Dublin continues its unplanned growth. The truth is out there, but a lot of people just don't see themselves as having any responsibility for dealing with it.

lucernarian

Before we can look at solutions to this problem, we need to know why exactly people and industry set up in Dublin. Political may have had influence on the growth patterns of the state in the past but because Dublin is so much larger, political interference alone is not enough. Much of Ireland's economic policy was based on attracting jobs to Ireland no matter what. The steps being taken now would have stopped Dublin becoming a primate city in the first place.

Industry goes to dublin mainly because of its huge skilled labour base and the presence of cheap, ECONOMICAL and large scale export/import infrastructure as well as several smaller reasons. People go there because of this reason and because there are better facilities and services available, therefore leading to a better quality of life.

The main obstacle we have in solving this problem is that Ireland's population is too small or rather that our population density is too low. Now this may appear to be contradicting myself but we don't have the taxation revenue or a large enough population in a different part of the country to stimulate economic growth. This "critical mass" number that the NSS goes on about is far smaller than what it needs to be in order to challenge Dublin.

What we should be doing is putting every decentralised job into ONE place, e.g. Cork and allocating most of national capital spending to there. In a few years time, footloose industries (ie IT) will see Cork as an equally good, if not better place to set up shop. When new jobs are being attracted to Cork on a large scale, then Capital Expenditure should be focused on one, different place. This should continue as long as there is the population to fill these "proper" cities. When the problem of urban sprawl is then spread out over a few areas, then many more places can be earmarked for extra capital, like what the NSS attempts to do now. In those circumstances, an NSS would be very successful. I think the structure of regions in most parts of Germany are a good example of this as places like Potsdam (25 miles approx. from Berlin) does not have a huge commuter problem and it is not a dormitory "town".

I live near Drogheda and the town is receiving the Dept. of Social Welfare. I am not happy with this decentralisation as industry is obviously not going to be really attracted by one 300 person depeartment. I think all the decentralised jobs should have gone to one place.

gurramok

As a Dub, i would agree that the No. 2 city Cork should be encouraged to grow to even rival Dublin as a magent for industry/population. Cities are a huge factor in driving the prosperity of a country.

I have no problem with Dubliners or any other people for that matter moving to places 30-40 miles from their place of work, provided they can have some sort of a positive impact on society.

Dubliners only really started en masse to move to 'dormitory' towns since the boom started.
Strange how this migration didnt happen before the boom, something to do with house prices in the cities ?
As house prices are at the moment, 'dormitory' towns are the best of the worst alternative to having an 'unaffordable' mortgage with all the drawbacks of heavy commuting etc.
The only upside to this is that industry 'might' start to locate more to these towns as there is a population base settled even though it commutes to work 60 miles away.
Some of these commuters would get jobs in their host towns and contribute to the local town economy more.

lucernarian

If there is a political party out there that would listen to what I have to say then I'd be delighted and I would join that party immediately. The problem is, although I think it would be a much more effective solution to population distribution inequality, no politician in this country has the balls to implement anything like this as about 1/2 the entire population would see this as damaging, not helpful to their area.

When you think about it, is decentralisation of tiny parts of governmental adminstration seriously going to attract industry?? In the town I live in, politicians have been campaigning for a government dept. for years. It'll achieve little for Drogheda or any other town for that matter. Nearly every politician I feel dosen't exactly know why decentralisation is so good. What they do know is that it gains votes. The government probably will carry out this promise but it won't cost them much and will gain thousands of votes, as well as other benefits for the Govt.

I'm also fed up with people calling the East Coast a region of prosperity when some parts of it are not. Did you know that (correct me if i'm wrong) Louth had a higher percentage of people on the Live Register than Mayo as at last month? There's a lot of other problems in Drogheda but this is not the place to discuss them.

I'm somewhat saddened and dissapointed that a problem of huge magnitude that affects hundreds of thousands of people is not getting political attention. I think that this problem has never been discussed in detail on Boards. I think we should be worried about the issues that affect us the most.

I think that the Hanly report is a good idea except that basic maternity services are not that expensive to provide and in places like Monaghan it is a good idea. Monaghan is too far away from other maternity services not to have some of its own.

Auf wiedersehen:)

ishmael whale

You can be quite confident that the planned decentralisation will be a flash in the pan, and will do nothing to divert growth away from Dublin. On the other hand it will cost money, and will make government less coherent (pause for inevitable comment "you mean its coherent now?").

You are entirely correct to say the solution is to stop scattering investment so widely that it has no impact, and concentrate on building up an alternative location that can compete with Dublin's scale. While the NSS advocates too wide a scattering, the analysis undertaken to inform the NSS would support you, and the earlier Buchanon report said much the same as well.

The issue has received some attention here. It showed there is an unwillingness to go beyond local loyalities to support a policy in the interest of the nation as a whole. Even though we can see that the current policy of scattering resources thinly does nothing to spread growth about the regions, people in those areas still want it continued. Hence I feel the most likely outcome is a continuation of the present policy, so that Dublin remains the main centre for growth.

To_be_comfirmed, if you're interested in earlier debates on Boards.ie in much the same area, they can be foundat the URLs below. As a topic I find it more interesting than slagging off George Bush. American culture seems so dominant that, in the shape of Michael Moore, they're even leading the market in criticism of US policy.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=137640
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=135115

lucernarian

I completely agree with you. We should sort out our own country before we start commenting on others, i.e. America. We are not perfect when it comes to diplomatic relations. Indeed, our beloved Eamonn DeValera signed the book of condolence for Adolf Hitler's death in the German Embassy in 1945. The reason why he did this (I hope) was probably because of Churchill's comments regarding Ireland. However, he shouldn't have, as former leader of this country, stoop to that level in order to pointscore.

I believe that this is a very important issue and that it should be discussed. Some people disagree with Ishmael's views and personally, I take a neutral stance. The issue of Knock Airport is a very sensitive one. I think a compromise of temporary closure of the airport until the scheme I proposed earlier was implemented would be a better idea, combined with the viable construction of the Western Rail Corridor. We need to look beyond the selfish idea of battling to get certain privelages for a local area. If the rest of the country puts up with a delay in the implementation of services in their area then, when they finally come, they will be much more effective. If we get a large enough single mass of people to go to a place in the West, then that place can act as a much more local place for people to obtain good services and it will help stop out-migration from the West.

One of the main reasons why I oppose the NSS is the way it ignores Drogheda, as well as certain other places. The Government shouldn't be like a selective santa, giving presents to some and coal to others. If NO town except 1 got privelages then we would all be in the same boat, while the growth of Dublin would be halted.

We must not get carried away that my ideas mean looking at people and regions in an economic way. Rather, they mean that I want to save rural Ireland in the short term, while in the long term we have a better country to live in, no matter where we go.

Cheers:)

sceptre

Originally posted by To_be_confirmed
Indeed, our beloved Eamonn DeValera signed the book of condolence for Adolf Hitler's death in the German Embassy in 1945. The reason why he did this (I hope) was probably because of Churchill's comments regarding Ireland.

I was kind of hoping he did that because the head of state of a country with whom we had open diplomatic relations had just died. De Valera knocked out a personal message of condolences to Truman on the death of Roosevelt. To have failed to call upon Hempel or send a message so recently after sending condolences to the Americans would have been an act of some discourtesy. The last part is my own opinion. Could argue the case either way but it's a bit presumptuous to just state it as an act that has any relevance to anything to do with current diplomatic relations (which in turn has bugger all to do with a discussion on the greater Dublin area).

Funny that no-one ever seems to remember that the Portuguese government called for two days of mourning after Hitler's death and had flags flown at half-mast for the duration.

Obviously I'm not defending de Valera for the sake of doing so. Always thought he was a bit of a pompous idiot myself, with more of a grasp on the way he thought things ought to be rather than the way things were in reality. Probably something one could say about quite a few mathematicians

lucernarian

For the record, I was making the point about DeV because I feel we shouldn't be so judgemental about trivial issues regaring Dubya's intelligence when we have important and pressing issues directly affecting us at home. I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned about the Iraqi War and any wrongdoings there as peoples' lives are at stake on all sides. I would love to see more discussion on the topic of this new(ish)-fangled GDA as I feel it is a very important issue that affects us all.

stuartfanning

Great Dublin area = County Dublin doesn't it? It always used to be called Co. Dublin so why change it? Or is it to pretend that ROI has a big Metropolitan just like those in the US and UK. Why ape them?

bonkey

Originally posted by stuartfanning
Great Dublin area = County Dublin doesn't it?

Nope, it stretches beyond that.

jc

lucernarian

Why would we want to copy them??? There shouln't be a large metropolitan area

ishmael whale

The term Greater Dublin area is used for two reasons. Firstly, its a shorthand way of referring to the area that has developed around Dublin. Secondly, and more importantly, it annoys a few petty minded people who can't bear to see the words 'Greater' and 'Dublin' in the same statement.

lucernarian

It's the same as Great Britain, which means the UK without Northern Ireland. I couldn't care less that it is the "greater dublin area". What I am concerned about is that dublin is engulfing the regions around it in a negative way. Its all well and good that I'm now living in a house that is valuable for its location (confirmed by auctioneer) but what happens when rural communities start dying out?

TomF

I see the Pentagon has a study saying global warming will engulf many European seaside cities, so maybe the "Greater Dublin Area" is already taken care-of.

lucernarian

I live 140 metres so it shouldn't be a problem:D

lucernarian

Above sea level, i mean