Earlier this week, Sinn Féin Senator Pearse Doherty gave a presentation to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs on his new report on redevelopment in the west, entitled Awakening the West.
The Donegal based Senator sat down before this presentation with the Mayo Advertiser to lay out some of the key issues in this report and how it affects Mayo and the whole general western seaboard from Cork to Donegal. The report which had taken over nine months to get put together was adopted by the Oireachtas Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Committee on Wednesday afternoon, afterwards Doherty said: “Today’s development is a huge step forward for the west of Ireland and the campaign for social and economic equality. The report will now be printed and sent to all Government Ministers with the full backing and support of the all party Oireachtas Committee.”
Senator Doherty was keen to lay out that this was a report for the all the people of whatever political stripe they wear, not just a Sinn Féin one.
Doherty sees the report as a first stepping stone to organising all the people of the west to demand improvements in funding for their regions to get proper infrastructure projects and developments under way. “I’m not naive enough to think that all these recommendations will be implemented overnight or even in the short term. But what this does will begin a campaign and get everyone and particularly those in rural areas which are facing issues such as depopulation and lack of infrastructural investments and who are struggling against the odds to survive. By showing each area that there are others like them along the western seaboard, it can get them to come together as one. We can unite with a common voice and as one we can put the pressure on the parliament and get things done. And as one mass we can put the pressure where it needs to be put.”
Retaining health services
The fight to retain health services in the west and see them improved rather than downgraded is a story that the people of Mayo are all too familiar with over the past year, and Doherty has identified this sector as one of the first major issues that needs to be addressed and reassessed by those in power. “People might question why health got such a large part of the report when there are other infrastructure projects and employment which are key at the minute. But if we want to see the survival of the west of Ireland it’s vital that we have the key public services and none more so than health services. We focused on Castlebar and Sligo particularly in the area of the removal of cancer care services which we see as a priority. We feel very strong about that.”
Balanced development
As recently as the Mayo County Council annual budget meeting in late December, the council explained that they didn’t envisage seeing any major road or other infrastructural projects in the next number of years. Doherty believes that serious structural changes need to be implemented at the very top level to ensure that west will not be left behind any more than it already is, and that regional impact studies must be carried out before the Government puts any new major plans in progress. “For example one of the recommendations we are calling for is for when the Government devise a plan, that they would be compelled by law to carry out a regional impact statement which would be carried out independently to ensure quality proofing of it. If it was found to negatively affect the western region they would then have to lay out the steps that they will take to rectify the situation. We would go further to allow any member of the public to launch an appeal against any plan at a national level to the Equality Authority, and if that appeal was upheld then it would be legally enforced. A similar position exists in the six counties where Conor Murphy is the minister for roads and transport. When he agrees his budget and plan for spending for the year he has to send it out to be independently assessed to ensure it’s not favouring one section of the community over the other. We want to see that enshrined in law, if it was there would be no way that the lobbies from the Dublin area would be able to hold back the investment into the west. The infrastructure projects were all prioritised for the east coast and put on the long finger for the west coast. What’s happened now is that we have the western rail corridor which is threatened to be stopped or at the very least really slowed down. The NRA are telling us there will only be maintenance work carried out on the roads, no new projects. In relation to the western rail corridor it’s €200 million to open that line compared to €3.7 billion to open the metro in Dublin. There are plenty people questioning the western rail corridor on the east coast and the need for it, but they are not questioning the metro at all. The west needs a stronger voice or all the investment will be directed back in around Dublin and we’ll be left with nothing at all.”
Job creation
While jobs continue to be lost as the economy continues to contract this report lays out the retrograde steps that have been taken over the past 15 years in regard to job creation targets and development targets by national Government which have been having an adverse effect on the west of Ireland. “We showed in this report that in 2007, 745, which is 8.1 per cent, of all jobs created in IDA parks was in the western seaboard area. The problem here was that the IDA used to have targets that all new developments 50 per cent of new jobs would be in the Border Midlands West region. That target has now disappeared, as had the target in other government agencies for spending in these areas. There is no way that the eastern region has had the increase in unemployment we have in the west. For the last number of years even when we had the Celtic Tiger there wasn’t the same amount of money being spent on the west as there was in the east.”
Taking some positives
But it’s not all doom and gloom for the people of Mayo and its hinterland according to Doherty. “Were not overly negative on the west either. We have a higher level of our students going on to third level, but the problem is that only 38 per cent of them return to their home counties to take up employment compared to 80 per cent in the Dublin region. We have the skills and the training in the west to get things done, but we get a tiny spend of the money at a national level. We are fighting against a giant who sees the west of Ireland as a playground for the Dublin region. We have even had this week a Dublin based Fianna Fáil TD coming out asking for the rural school transport scheme to be axed. This kind of thinking from people who have no idea what it’s like to live in a rural area and the type of infrastructure we have compared to a city. It’s a huge, huge task. I do believe it is achievable, there are short term, medium, and long term goals. I believe if somebody doesn’t take up the mantle to begin this campaign the west of Ireland will continue the decline into what we have seen in recent years.”
