The Council for the West, which campaigns on socioeconomic issues in the west of Ireland, has expressed its concern about the number of people who will be living in the greater Dublin area in the future and the effect it will have on the west of Ireland. The organisation has called on the Government to examine how sensible it is for the country to have 2.5 million people living within the greater Dublin area within the next 15 years. Commenting on recent research by urban economist Brian Hughes, a member of the Government’s own expert group on population projections, which shows that by around 2070 more than half of Ireland’s population will be living in the greater Dublin area, the council said the trend was for more urbanisation, but it questioned whether a ‘city state’ is the best or only policy to be pursued willy-nilly.
“The question has to be asked – is it fair on the people of greater Dublin to push the figures through the roof in the absence of so many essential supports across the spectrum?” asked council chairman Sean Hannick from Killala. “As things stand, Dublin does not have an adequate water supply, its schools and hospitals are overcrowded, its airport and roads are jammed, its social services over-extended.”
He said this was happening while investment in the west was decreasing, giving people fewer opportunities to stay there. “Meanwhile in parts of rural Ireland the decline in population was significant and disturbing, policing was being reduced, post offices were being closed, villages were being robbed of their very life, and communities were 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. Regional airports are under severe threat. Job creation in the region has again failed to live up to Government promises. 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.”
Hannick and the council have called on all political parties to draw up a blueprint for the west to address the issues that affect all the people who live here. “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,” he warned.
