Western Rail Corridor

gjim

MG, why don't you set your stall out so and explain your arguments why:
1. a county with no-infrastructure deficit (the worst traffic jam in the county would be the five minutes it takes to get through the centre of Castlebar if you don't use the ring road), higher standard of living by many social measures, cheaper housing, higher access to 3rd level education, inhabited by a small population deserves massive transfers of money from a region which is almost collapsing from a lack of infrastructure.
2. why those transfers should be spent on a complete white elephant which only benefit a miniscule proportion of the population and provides no general economic stimulus to the region.

I'm not surprised people are reacting the way they are. The WRC is an embarassing reminder of how "infrastructure spending" used to be administered in this country years ago. You get a priest, a bunch of whiney locals with a victim complex and a couple of shrilly indignant parish pump politicians and try to create a bandwagon convinced that any money spent in "their county" is good for them whether or not the project has any merit at all. I've read letters in the papers from WRC supporters attacking the notion of conducting cost/benefit analysis. They are a throwback to a different age.

PandaMania

I'm not surprised people are reacting the way they are. The WRC is an embarassing reminder of how "infrastructure spending" used to be administered in this country years ago. You get a priest, a bunch of whiney locals with a victim complex and a couple of shrilly indignant parish pump politicians and try to create a bandwagon convinced that any money spent in "their county" is good for them whether or not the project has any merit at all. I've read letters in the papers from WRC supporters attacking the notion of conducting cost/benefit analysis. They are a throwback to a different age.

Bravo. The best analysis of WestonTrack and the people who support their fantasy victim complex I have heard yet. You could not have nailed it more perfectly.

I have been at one of the public meetings in Sligo were the preist talked about this being stage one with other later projects to include a spur to Knock Airport, a spur to Marian Shrine at Knock and a spur to a new deep water container harbour at Belmulet while some kids they bused in for the event (they moved them from every town from Claremorris north during this day of protest) held up a poster which read "LUAS FOR DUBLIN - NOTHING FOR THE WEST!"

What really bothered me was the total lack of empathy for people in places like Navan who live crappy lives commuting 3 hours a day to work and if you look at Transport 21 you can see that WoT have managed to delay the rail service to Navan by getting Cullen to include the Claremorris extenion without any involvement by Mayo county council to zone along the railway the way Cork and Meath have done and are still waiting for the Midleton and Dunboyne rail services.

The Western Rail Corridor considering where the real rail infrastructural need remains, is the most insane project ever proposed in the history of this state. Banana Republicanism in the extreme - if this white elephant is built (even McCann who were brought in to make it look viable said that it wasn't a realistic project for the most part), then Ireland should be just handed over to some despot in Africa to run because that's the level we will have sunk to.

murphaph

Right, everywhere else where remote, sparsely populated regions exist that do not lie between large urban centres they are generally poorly served with rail in comparison to the large urban centres where people have migrated to from sparsely populated regions for millenia, they're called cities and they exist because they provide economies of scale that can't be realised in sparsely populated regions. I put it to the advocates of the WRC that the west is already very well served by rail in comparison to Dublin. Take Scotland as an example. Roughly the same population as Ireland, but with the vast bulk of their railways centred on the M8 corridor (Glasgow-Edinburgh conurbation), i.e., where people actually live in the greatest numbers. The situation in Ireland is already heavily biased towards the west of the country when it comes to per capita miles of rail. If you don't believe me take a look at Scotland's and Ireland's rail network on this map and more importantly this map, pay particular attention to the west-v-Dublin and the highlands-v-Glasgow/Edinburgh. Hint, the scottish way is the right way.

England cannot be compared so easily because it's population is 55m and is well dispersed throughout the country in comparison to Ireland and Scotland. That's not to say England is sparsely populated (it's one of the most densely populated places on earth actually) but they have many more cities dotted throughout the land. Ireland & Scotland simply don't have enough people to support multiple large urban centres but our politicians persist with the 'forced' urbanisation of the countryside with decentralistaion and other such nonsense.

Victor

murphaph wrote:

England cannot be compared so easily because it's population is 55m and is well dispersed throughout the country in comparison to Ireland and Scotland.

Actually, England is an odd one, whiles the cities are generally large and highly populated, the other end of the scale is much less dense than the more remote parts of Ireland. Few parts of Ireland are more than 2km from a surfaced road (and population has the habit of using existing roads), whereas in England places like Dartmoor are very remote indeed.

ishmael whale

PandaMania wrote:

..some kids they bused in for the event .. held up a poster which read "LUAS FOR DUBLIN - NOTHING FOR THE WEST!"

Then we wonder how they grow up with such screwy ideas.

MG wrote:

A brief look at the stats throw up some interesting questions which need to be addressed for a rounded discussion...

I take it the general thrust of your questions is to find out if, notwithstanding the fact that Western households make no net contribution to national coffers, there still might be some mysterious way in which decent self employed Westerners are paying taxes which employ high paid public servants in Dublin who would otherwise be unemployed skangers.

According to the CSO, the highest paid public servants are Prison Officers, Garda Siochana, Semi State body employees and Teachers. http://www.cso.ie/statistics/public_sector_earnings.htm

http://www.ahcps.ie/decentralisation/Executive%20Committee%20Report.doc
The total number of public servants in 2003 was stated to be 276,000, of whom 35,000 (13%) are civil servants, and the remaining 241,000 (87%) are employed in the health boards, education sector, local authorities, the defence forces, the Garda Siochana, and various non-commercial state bodies and agencies.
It is unclear precisely how many of these 241,000 non-civil service personnel are based outside Dublin. However, the Department of Finance did indicate that 38,000 (40%) of the total of Health Board personnel were employed in the ERHA area, and 4,000 (36%) of members of the Garda Siochana were based in the Dublin Metropolitan Area. …

According to the following link, there are 17,800 primary teachers. 4276 or 24% of these are in Dublin. I can’t find equivalent stats for secondary schools, but I expect its much the same. http://www.education.ie/servlet/blobservlet/statistics02-03_c.pdf.

So, in general, there seems to be no unwarranted concentration of public servants in Dublin and in particular some of the highest paid public sector occupations – Garda and teaching – are well decentralised of their nature.

In any case this idea of the expenditure of all these public servants giving a ‘boost’ is an illusion, given the high proportion of our consumer expenditure that goes in exports. This is Leaving Cert economics, as I am blue in the face from explaining.

http://www.unison.ie/features/education/exambrief/pdfs/leaving/economics_o&h3.pdf …. if the government decides to cut taxes (which is an expansionary fiscal policy) and also cuts interest rates (which is an expansionary monetary policy) the combined effect is to give people extra spending power. Aggregate demand increases – however a huge percentage of this extra spending power leaks abroad in the form of higher demand for imports. This is because Ireland has a high marginal propensity to import. Therefore imports rise causing Balance of Payments problems.

So, on the face of it, the plain facts would seem to be:
1. The general trend established by CSO figures is that the West is a net gainer from State finances, while the East is a net contributor.

2. It is uncontroversial to say that there is no particular demand side ‘boost’ given to Dublin by an unwarranted concentration of public servants and, in any case, the higher paid jobs tend to be decentralised of their nature.

3. Western Development Commission figures suggest the West is materially better of in education and commuting time. Also a comparison to Scotland suggests the West is already generously provided with rail services. This suggests that the Westward transfer of resources actually leads to relatively better levels of service provision.

All of these points are substantiated with relevant links, and probably more than enough information to get a Phd from Pacific Western University. Can I suggest if you want to refute any of these points you really need to provide a similar level of substantiation, and not a follow up request for a breakdown of Garda overtime by region?

Alternatively, simply assimilate this material and lose the ‘Luas for Dublin, West gets nothing’ mindset.

murphaph

Ishmael, you're quite correct of course, indeed the fact that so many government buildings are located in Dublin City has been a bone of contention for decades within the City Council because no government owned buildings are subject to rates! That's some prime real estate in the heart of Dublin for which the city council receive 0 business rates (look at any AA map of Dublin to see just how many state owned buildings there are on the southside of the city). These rates have to be made up by private sector businesses to pay for city services, even though those government departments run the entire country, not just Dublin City.

D'Peoples Voice

ishmael whale wrote:

So, on the face of it, the plain facts would seem to be:
The general trend established by CSO figures is that the West is a net gainer from State finances, while the East is a net contributor.

I'm waiting for the day that West on Track make an analogy along the lines of, Germany and France were net contributors to the EU, Ireland was a net gainer from the EU structural funds.
Look what happened Ireland's GDP as a result of EU investment in her infrastructure, the same can happen the west of ireland.

I'm telling you, I can see this crap being spun by these people. Their analysis on many things seems to be very shallow, and their conclusions tenuous at best.

murphaph

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

I'm waiting for the day that West on Track make an analogy along the lines of, Germany and France were net contributors to the EU, Ireland was a net gainer from the EU structural funds.
Look what happened Ireland's GDP as a result of EU investment in her infrastructure, the same can happen the west of ireland.

I'm telling you, I can see this crap being spun by these people. Their analysis on many things seems to be very shallow, and their conclusions tenuous at best.

They've already spun that. That's the whole 'balanced regional development' crock of sh!t that WoT love to rattle on about while not batting an eyelid to Sligo's soon to deteriorate existing rail connection to Dublin! It's a giant model railway to these people, nothing more.

PandaMania

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

I'm telling you, I can see this crap being spun by these people. Their analysis on many things seems to be very shallow, and their conclusions tenuous at best.

Look at the high class people they have on their side.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Western Poeple

€3.65Bn in coffers as region suffers
By: Marian Harrison

A whopping €3.65billion in NDP funding, which was earmarked for the Border, Midland Western Regions (BMW), hasn’t been spent.
The shortfall in the funding was recently announced in the Dáil.
Castlebar based Deputy Beverley Flynn who has highlighted the massive underspent told the Western People that the figures were a “shattering blow” to the concept of creating balance between the West and the East of the country.
The shortfall is even worse now that when Deputy Flynn led the landmark Dail debate on the issue last March.
The figures, given to Deputy Flynn by Minister for Finance Brian Cowen, cover the period from January, 2000, to the end of June, 2005. They show that of an allocated budget of €14.04bn for the BMW region, actual expenditure came to only €10.34 a shortfall of €3.65bn.
“This is a shortfall equal to €10m for every day of the year”, said Deputy Flynn. It is under spending at a time when the N5 national route to the west remains no better that a byroad at many locations, when Knock Airport is in need of capital investment for expansion when the electricity grid is incapable of delivering energy for new industry, when our infrastructure remains totally deficient,” she said.
Deputy Flynn said that while job losses, lack of investment and poor quality of infrastructure reflected the ongoing neglect of the West, billions of euro in allocated funds were lying unspent in government coffers.
“Bad enough that for decades the west suffered neglect when public finances were simply not there.
Now, we are still victims of the same neglect even when the funds have been set aside for us”, she said.
“It should be noted that these damning statistics came to light in the same week that the government found it could not fund the Western Rail Corridor in its entirety and that Claremorris would have to wait until 2014 to see half of the line being restored”, noted Deputy Flynn.
Deputy Flynn said that it must be a cause for alarm for all involved in western regeneration that as the National Development Plan enters its final days the unspent allocation gets bigger and bigger.

ishmael whale

“Bad enough that for decades the west suffered neglect when public finances were simply not there. Now, we are still victims of the same neglect even when the funds have been set aside for us”, she said.

The Western Development Commission are spending all that money telling people on the East coast what they’re missing out on, when they really need to be educating advocates in their own region.

http://www.lookwest.ie/lookwest/Home/WestLiving/AtHomeinLetterkenny/tabid/106/Default.aspx … It takes me eight minutes to walk to work and eight minutes home,” he says smugly. .. “People in Dublin think Donegal is in Outer Mongolia. That’s such a wrong perception. Letterkenny is only a three and a half hour drive from Dublin and the road network is very good.”

http://www.lookwest.ie/lookwest/Home/WestLiving/SligoGatewaytoaBetterLife/tabid/107/Default.aspx Last week AA Roadwatch reported a four-mile tailback in County Laois and Dublin’s drivers were slogging through its blocked traffic arteries. In Sligo, Fintan Hanson left his office at the Pensions section of the Department of Social and Family Affairs at 5.30pm. In 20 minutes he was walking on the beach.. He lives a mile from work, on the Strandhill Road in Sligo town, and is at his desk ten minutes after leaving the house, without passing a traffic light….

And, of course, our all time favourite.

http://www.lookwest.ie/lookwest/Home/WestLiving/tabid/105/Default.aspx#Less_Time_in_the_Car_–_More_Time_for_You_
75% of people in the West spend 30 minutes or less getting to work
Only 1 in 20 spend more than an hour
Average commute time is about 20 minutes
1 in 7 people in the Dublin area have to travel for over an hour to get to work each day

How low does that average commute time have to be before Bev would acknowledge the West is advantaged?

Calina

ishmael whale wrote:

How low does that average commute time have to be before Bev would acknowledge the West is advantaged?

While not wanting to get too involved in this debate which appears to be all on one side, remind me again why so many people live in Dublin adding to massive daily gridlock and overburdening the sadly inadequate public transport system, sitting in traffic clearly agains their will, while practically no one lives in the west....when clearly the west is so much better a place to live? with no gridlock, public transport problems or traffic jams (although having spent 30 minutes in a traffic jam in Castlebar one day...I wonder)

It couldn't be because most of the jobs are centred on Dublin, by any chance, could it? Because if surely, if the West had so much to offer, over Dublin, wouldn't any sane rational person be gone from the east coast at this stage?

murphaph

ARRRGGHH, DUBLIN IS A SMALL CITY!

'Spreading people around' is what causes all the bloody problems. Dublin needs to densify. This is happening all over now with no developer in his right mind opting to build 3 bed semis in the city. The city needs a transport network befitting it. It does not need to reduce it's population by them moving to the Lebensraum in Conemara.

Ireland's population cannot sustain much more than 1 or 2 large cities. Why are people so effing fixated with spreading the population as thinly as possible around the place when densification in cities are the way to go to allow people to live and work in an environment where they aren't totally dependent on a handful of employers in town X. If you live in a city like Dulin you have many choices on where to work. That's one of the principal reasons why cities have existed for millenia-but this is Ireland where cities are bad and pink bungalows all over rural Sligo are good :mad:

ishmael whale

Calina wrote:

While not wanting to get too involved in this debate which appears to be all on one side

Well, maybe if you stick around it won’t be so one-sided. Or maybe that one side is simply right. The key point being made is that reports of the West’s neglect are greatly exaggerated, and that looks fairly certain.

Calina wrote:

It couldn't be because most of the jobs are centred on Dublin, by any chance, could it? Because if surely, if the West had so much to offer, over Dublin, wouldn't any sane rational person be gone from the east coast at this stage?

I could almost write a lengthy thread myself from this starting point. Cutting to the chase, it really boils down to the analysis behind the national spatial strategy. Development can only be diverted away from Dublin to centres of sufficient scale. This might be summarised crudely as saying the essential choice people have is between Dublin taking all development, or development being shared with the other cities. But the idea that Claremorris and every town of its size can be a centre for growth just isn’t feasible. This reality has been ignored, with the outcome being the unplanned growth of Dublin.

The West has effectively adopted a dispersed settlement pattern (i.e. lots of small towns and people living in one-off housing) which costs a bucket to serve and puts them out of the running for economic development. As we have seen above, the problem is not a lack of State support. The West demanded infrastructure and got it. For example, every Western seaboard county has its own airport, although more would probably have been achieved if they had one with sufficient scale to be a genuine resource instead of several community totems.

So the question is really why the State should throw money at pointless projects in the West, instead of investing the money in the locations that people are actually going to end up living in. There more that can be said about the WRC in particular, but that’s the essential point.

Calina

ishmael whale wrote:

Well, maybe if you stick around it won’t be so one-sided. Or maybe that one side is simply right. The key point being made is that reports of the West’s neglect are greatly exaggerated, and that looks fairly certain. I could almost write a lengthy thread myself from this starting point. Cutting to the chase, it really boils down to the analysis behind the national spatial strategy. Development can only be diverted away from Dublin to centres of sufficient scale. This might be summarised crudely as saying the essential choice people have is between Dublin taking all development, or development being shared with the other cities. But the idea that Claremorris and every town of its size can be a centre for growth just isn’t feasible. This reality has been ignored, with the outcome being the unplanned growth of Dublin.

The West has effectively adopted a dispersed settlement pattern (i.e. lots of small towns and people living in one-off housing) which costs a bucket to serve and puts them out of the running for economic development. As we have seen above, the problem is not a lack of State support. The West demanded infrastructure and got it. For example, every Western seaboard county has its own airport, although more would probably have been achieved if they had one with sufficient scale to be a genuine resource instead of several community totems.

So the question is really why the State should throw money at pointless projects in the West, instead of investing the money in the locations that people are actually going to end up living in. There more that can be said about the WRC in particular, but that’s the essential point.

In part, I have not gotten involved in WRC specific debates because I don't have a significant amount of information at it at my disposal.

But I would equally contend that there is no obvious reason why there couldn't be an effective change in policy vis a vis planning in the west instead of saying "oh well, they messed it up, let's give up and groan onwards with Dublin". In other words, start building the centres of sufficient scale instead of complaining than they are not there. Yes mistakes have been made with planning in the past in the West but let's face it, Dublin is hardly an example of perfect planning either.

Victor

murphaph wrote:

Ishmael, you're quite correct of course, indeed the fact that so many government buildings are located in Dublin City has been a bone of contention for decades within the City Council because no government owned buildings are subject to rates! That's some prime real estate in the heart of Dublin for which the city council receive 0 business rates (look at any AA map of Dublin to see just how many state owned buildings there are on the southside of the city). These rates have to be made up by private sector businesses to pay for city services, even though those government departments run the entire country, not just Dublin City.

I had understood this had changed.

murphaph

Victor wrote:

I had understood this had changed.

You might be right, I haven't heard about any changes but the situation persisted since the foundation of the state so it's only 80 odd years of rates that weren't paid

Calina,
The planning mistakes were indeed made across almost every square mile of this land, the thing is, Dublin and most of the counties surrounding it now have very strict one-off housing guidelines and low density just doesn't cut it anymore, meanwhile Clare Co Co ar still granting PP to one-off houses within 100m of N roads, contrary to NRA guidelines. There's a gulf between 'planning' in the west and planning in places like my county, Fingal. Farmers can't even build houses on thei own land in Fingal anymore!

Calina

murphaph wrote:

Calina,
The planning mistakes were indeed made across almost every square mile of this land, the thing is, Dublin and most of the counties surrounding it now have very strict one-off housing guidelines and low density just doesn't cut it anymore, meanwhile Clare Co Co ar still granting PP to one-off houses within 100m of N roads, contrary to NRA guidelines. There's a gulf between 'planning' in the west and planning in places like my county, Fingal. Farmers can't even build houses on thei own land in Fingal anymore!

You're missing my point though. I say "turn it around" and the prevailing view seems to be "give it up".

I'd have to also add - and this has dragged us way off topic - that planning errors are still being made in Dublin vis-a-vis the high density apartment blocks that are being built in locations where public transport is patchy and the layout of many of them mean fairly long and lonely walks to nearest available public transport options. I'm thinking of parts of Swords here, by the way.

gjim

To do that (ensure sufficient concentrations of development in the West which could provide a centre for real economic growth and development) would require centralising control over the planning process. Can you imagine the outraged catewauling that any suggestion that the local councils might lose their Section 4 powers? It's a no-win situation - you allow the local councils the powers and they procede to act as if there's no such thing as sustainable planning policies. As a result you get a dispersed uneconomic pattern of development, a lack of economic growth and the begging bowl. On the otherhand, if you took these powers away from the local councils they'd go nuts.

In Clare, the councillors went balistic when the NRA responded to the granting of planning permission for a bungalow along an N road by saying that it could not improve that section of the N road as a result. One of them stated publicly that their dream was to see that the road from Ennis to Kilrush would be lined the whole way with bungalows. In the meantime they are using money to promote and develop a business park in Ennis while Shannon which is approaching a critical mass of industries and business is less than 20 minutes away.

Meanwhile in Mayo, they are demanding capital investment for Knock - so they'll end up with two small international Airports serving the region instead of one large one (and this is ignorning the airports in Kerry, Galway, Sligo and Donegal).

All over Clare, Galway, Mayo and Donegal you'll see once-off houses dotted all over the countryside. How does anyone think that this makes any sense economically? The land or agriculture cannot provide a living in this day and age so anyone trying to generate a living will have to travel miles in cars to get to/from work. To buy a loaf of bread will involve more driving. Their kids will have to travel 10 miles to school. The cost of providing infrastructure like broadband, decent roads, schools, hospitals and rail must be an order of magnitude higher than it is in cities.

It's also a mistake to think of the West as one region. Limerick is a strong economic centre which probably contributes more to the central coffers than it receives.

murphaph

Calina wrote:

You're missing my point though. I say "turn it around" and the prevailing view seems to be "give it up".

Not at all. The western county councils can turn it around. Cork Co Co has been busting it's balls to densify the corridor between Cork City and Midleton and they will (hopefully) someday be rewarded with a reopened rail link. Similarly the western counties have done zip to densify the alignment of the WRC or even to promote development in the towns along the route, prefering instead to continue the one-off housing free-for-all disaster, and the WRC has been approved without a proper cost/benefit analysis in a vote grabbing move by FF.

Calina wrote:

I'd have to also add - and this has dragged us way off topic - that planning errors are still being made in Dublin vis-a-vis the high density apartment blocks that are being built in locations where public transport is patchy and the layout of many of them mean fairly long and lonely walks to nearest available public transport options. I'm thinking of parts of Swords here, by the way.

Swords is due to get a metro link to the airport and city. Swords is one of the 3 'towns' in Fingal, designated for all future densification. The other 2 are Balbriggan and Blanchardstown. No other towns will be heavily developed. That is a planning strategy. Many western counties don't know the meaning of planning. Balbriggan is due to get DART as is Blanchardstown (along with metro).

ishmael whale

Calina wrote:

In other words, start building the centres of sufficient scale instead of complaining than they are not there. .

I have absolutely no problem with this approach. Bear in mind I'm not complaining about the idea of regional development. What I am complaining about is the rhetoric of many Western development activists of the 'Luas for Dublin and nothing for the West' mindset who brush past the considerable resources diverted to Western development, and pretend Dublin is in some way taking resources from the regions when in fact the reverse is the case.

Calina wrote:

Yes mistakes have been made with planning in the past in the West but let's face it, Dublin is hardly an example of perfect planning either.

I think there is a difference. Dublin has been starved of investment until very recently when the tide of development just could not be ignored. The West, on the other hand, got a packet and wasted it. I could let this history go if there were signs that Western development activists had learnt from the experience. Guess what - they haven't and, from what Pandamania says, they're bringing up another generation with the same delusions.

But be utterly clear about this. I would totally back a regional development policy based on sound investment in projects in regional cities that actually achieve a purpose.

Victor

ishmael whale wrote:

For example, every Western seaboard county has its own airport,

Leitrim doesn't!

SeanW

ishmael whale wrote:

I have absolutely no problem with this approach. Bear in mind I'm not complaining about the idea of regional development. What I am complaining about is the rhetoric of many Western development activists of the 'Luas for Dublin and nothing for the West' mindset who brush past the considerable resources diverted to Western development, and pretend Dublin is in some way taking resources from the regions when in fact the reverse is the case.I think there is a difference. Dublin has been starved of investment until very recently when the tide of development just could not be ignored. The West, on the other hand, got a packet and wasted it. I could let this history go if there were signs that Western development activists had learnt from the experience. Guess what - they haven't and, from what Pandamania says, they're bringing up another generation with the same delusions.

But be utterly clear about this. I would totally back a regional development policy based on sound investment in projects in regional cities that actually achieve a purpose.

Exactly. Look at a map of railways in Co. Mayo. Then superimpose the full WRC onto it. YOu end up with a whole spider's web rail network of lightly used interradial lines costing a packet and serving next to no-one.

Meanwhile Navan has no passenger railway service at all, and its residents are suffering really badly. And West On Track was - and remains - totally silent on some real issues effecting real Western people. Such as the condition of the Dublin-Sligo railway - Shannonbridge seems to be becoming the next Cassandra Crossing, and of course Irish Rail is now hell bent on introducing Commuter grade rubbish railcars which will probably kill the Sligo line, or damage it possibly beyond repair if left unchecked.

If Mayo ... eh "West" On Track was really worried about railway issues affecting people of the West, they wouldn't be so silent about the above. But the Sligo line doesn't go to Mayo.

Would be more honest if WOT renamed themselves "Knock-Off track" and their proposal the Pointless Mayo Rail Plan. Becuase that's really what they're after.

ishmael whale

Victor wrote:

Leitrim doesn't!

Cough, ahem. Every Western seaboard county with a population greater than 25,799 in 2002 ...

MG

To Thomas & Co who complain about the “bunch of whiney locals with a victim complex” etc, I assure you the irony has not gone unnoticed.

By the way, the WRC really extends from Sligo to Wexford and connects Galway, Limerick, Cork & Waterford. It will not be used to connect a bog to the ocean in Mayo as some seem to think.

Ismael, at least you have the decency to research your postings and indeed to read my posting. The figures you quote for Gardai & Teachers are less helpful as they are decentralised, as you note, by their nature. In order to examine the disportionality, it is the jobs that tend not to be evenly dispersed that we need to examine and in particular the higher paid jobs which tend to be based at headquarters.

Would you mind telling me where the following have their headquarters:
Dail, Senate, Aras an Uachterain, office of the AG, Data protection commissioner, Department of Agriculture, Office of Appeals commissioner, Department of Arts, Sports & Tourism, Office of Comptroller & auditor general, department of defence, department of education, Dept of ETE, Dept of education, Dept of Transport, Dept of Finance, Dept of Foreign Affairs, Dept of Health, Dept of Justice, OPW, The High Court, Department of Taoiseach, Aer Lingus, Iarnrod Eireann, Bord Failte, Bus Eireann, RTE, ESB, National Lottery, CRO, CSO?

(A little bit of help – the CSO HQ is in Cork)


We can see therefore that Dublin has a very high concentration of jobs which would not be replicated elsewhere and are likely to be highly paid.

So to address your conclusions:

1. Agreed on the face of it but this does not take into account the invisible boost to earnings (and hence taxes) that centralisation gives. I therefore don’t accept the net contribution as a theoretical argument for funding Dublin over everywhere where else (as it happens only a small portion goes elsewhere – Dublin is actually getting the largest slice of the cake). This argument can only have some merit if it still holds true after artificial components are stripped out. Even then, there are still theoretical problems with this approach from a socio-political viewpoint (i.e. taxes generally feed down).
2. Higher paid public servant jobs do tend to be higher in Dublin if we accept that employees at HQ get paid more than your average employee and that there is a huge concentration of state HQs in Dublin.
To claim there is no boost to the economy is wrong for a number of reasons – the very fact that these jobs are there boosts the income figures you quote, these institutions have operational and capitals budgets which are likely to stay local. This money swirling around the economy is going to give an income based statistic a boost. Your point on exports refers to a high marginal propensity by the way, not absolute propensity so the leakage is not necessarily great.

3. The comparison to Scotland is interesting. Outside of Glasgow & Edinburgh, are the largest cities in Scotland connected by rail?

You mentioned a PhD from Pacific Western? Interesting to note that the chap at the centre of this controversy was the governments scientific advisor – a job based in Dublin. He has recently moved to a new civil servants job with a salary of €100,000. This job is also based in Dublin.

MG

ishmael whale wrote:

Cough, ahem. Every Western seaboard county with a population greater than 25,799 in 2002 ...

Where is the airport in Co. Limerick?

ishmael whale

MG wrote:

Where is the airport in Co. Limerick?

Or, more to the point, why did it end up in Clare?

By the way, the WRC really extends from Sligo to Wexford and connects Galway, Limerick, Cork & Waterford. It will not be used to connect a bog to the ocean in Mayo as some seem to think.

The debate, of course, relates to the West On Track proposal to invest money reopening the line from Ennis to Sligo. Most of the cost relates to Claremorris to Colooney. No proper case has been made to justify this proposal, unlike say Cork-Midleton and Navan. It is being done simply to satisfy a local mainly Mayo-based lobby.

The figures you quote for Gardai & Teachers are less helpful as they are decentralised, as you note, by their nature. In order to examine the disportionality, it is the jobs that tend not to be evenly dispersed that we need to examine and in particular the higher paid jobs which tend to be based at headquarters.

I think you need to reconsider my earlier post. There are about 250,000 public servants. Only about one tenth of these are central government civil servants. Therefore, if you only look at central government you actually miss most of the picture.
When you look at the link I posted above from the CSO website, you’ll see that on average Prison Officers and Garda Siochana are actually paid more than central government employees. So you are quite wrong to say

We can see therefore that Dublin has a very high concentration of jobs which would not be replicated elsewhere and are likely to be highly paid … [and] …. employees at HQ get paid more than your average employee and that there is a huge concentration of state HQs in Dublin..

This statement you are making is at variance to the information that we have, which is seeing where Prisons, Gardai, Teachers and Semi State employees are deployed has more of an impact on the regional distribution of the pay bill that the location of the centre of Government. This is because there’s more of them, and they are better paid. If most public servants are decentralised of their nature, including the higher paid ones, it means there isn’t really much of an issue in government being headquartered in the capital (which is, in any event, where you would expect it to be headquartered.)

Your point on exports refers to a high marginal propensity by the way, not absolute propensity so the leakage is not necessarily great

In some ways, this is the more important point as it highlights the low level of public awareness of the basic structure of the Irish economy. It is simply uncontroversial to say that we tend to import what we consume and export what we produce. I would doubt if you would find any support anywhere for the contention that domestic demand plays any great role in a small open economy like Ireland, as it simply makes no sense to say that. What determines economic wellbeing in Ireland is the extent to which we succeed in selling our goods abroad.

Finally, are you suggesting that Phds from Pacific Western University should be accepted so long as the posts are located outside Dublin? Is location of the job really the core issue that comes to your mind in that case?

PandaMania

MG, P11 will be handing out 10,000s of copies of this letter at major public transport points and traffic intersections in Dublin, Cork and Lmerick over the coming months. If you are not busy perhaps you might like to come down and give us a hand?

An Open Letter to Minister Cullen on Behalf of the Public Transport Users of Ireland

Subject: Why Was the Western Rail Corridor Included in Transport 21?

Dear Minister,

Can you please explain how the largest section of railway ever to be reopened in the history of the state (Ennis to Claremorris), was sanctioned on November 1 2005 without any cost/benefit analysis? Since 2001 we have had several reports questioning the overall viability of the Western Rail Corridor including the recent McCann Report. Why did taxpayer's money pay for these reports if the Western Rail Corridor is not subject to the same examination and due planning and rail viability process which Navan, Cork and Dublin must stringently follow in order to get a few miles of railway track reopened? Why did these councils bother to follow your guidelines if it’s a ‘free-for-all’ in Mayo? How can you fast track a rail line through rural East Galway and Mayo to serve Claremorris (a small town with three active passenger rail lines already serving it) with greater urgency over truly vital projects such as extending the DART, the Midleton rail line, or connecting Navan to the rail network?

Here’s why. Because on the RTE ‘Six One News’ following the launch of Transport 21 you stated that West on Track “beseeched” you to do so, and you gave it to them. No cost/benefit analysis is to be applied to the Western Rail Corridor.

We genuinely hard-pressed commuters are fairly intelligent people, but Transport 21 left us most confused. We no longer understand the rules of the game anymore. Except to say, that if we "beseech" you to fast track the Dublin Rail Interconnector, would you? If the people of Navan "beseech" you to fast track the Navan rail link without any further studies or delays, would you? If the commuters of Leinster, Limerick and Cork "beseeched" you for integrated public transport systems without further Government dithering, would you give it to them?

You see Minister, this is why we are so confused. We need to know - what are the rules and do they apply to everybody? Please Minister Cullen, We are "beseeching" you for the answer to this mystery and nothing else. So that those of us who are actually standing on crowded trains, trams and buses, or stuck in real traffic jams get you to listen to us for a change.

Unfortunately, the inclusion of the Western Rail Corridor in Transport 21 has left us feeling like we are back at square one and our votes don't count. Perhaps the genuine commuters of Navan, Ballymun, Midleton, Swords, Limerick, Dunboyne, Lucan should just move to Claremorris instead.

Yours Sincerely,

The Public Transport Users of Ireland

MG

PandaMania wrote:

MG, P11 will be handing out 10,000s of copies of this letter at major public transport points and traffic intersections in Dublin, Cork and Lmerick over the coming months. If you are not busy perhaps you might like to come down and give us a hand?

Thanks you for the invitation. I’m afraid my high initial hopes for P11 were dashed and would not want to join P11 until it achieves certain standards. (For instance, not signing other peoples names to letters!) I may consider a donation towards a poster which reads "WRC FOR THE WEST - NOTHING FOR DUBLIN!"

BTW, my understanding was that the T21 version of the WRC was more or less in line with P11 policy (the latest policy anyway, it’s so hard to keep (on) track).

D'Peoples Voice

murphaph wrote:

Not at all. The western county councils can turn it around. Cork Co Co has been busting it's balls to densify the corridor between Cork City and Midleton and they will (hopefully) someday be rewarded with a reopened rail link. Similarly the western counties have done zip to densify the alignment of the WRC or even to promote development in the towns along the route, prefering instead to continue the one-off housing free-for-all disaster, and the WRC has been approved without a proper cost/benefit analysis in a vote grabbing move by FF.

I wonder if the government made it a requirement that certain infrastructure projects will only go to areas/counties that have demonstrated a "will" to densify their communities in a manner that makes such infrastructural projects viable.
If they did, then perhaps every county would know where they stand. County representatives could not claim to be ignored if they can't point to improved planning in their area. It would also be a mechanism for the government to able to defend throwing money away on schemes they know are white elephants, but that they feel they must invest in them to save face.
So the government should ask Mayo/Sligo county council, what over the past 10 to 15 years have they done, in terms of planning permission for housing, to make such a railway viable. If Mayo/Sligo county councils cannot point to any solid evidence, well there you go, people would know who is to blame. Of course Mayo coco would bring up the chicken and the egg argument...

PandaMania

MG wrote:

Thanks you for the invitation. I’m afraid my high initial hopes for P11 were dashed and would not want to join P11 until it achieves certain standards. (For instance, not signing other peoples names to letters!)

You want to explain this comment? What letter and what name and what publication this happened?