Blueprint for our nation lacks courage and will to stop inevitable flow east

THE National Planning Framework – if the anaemic first draft is indicative of the future envisaged for Ireland up to 2040 – is going to inexorably turn Ireland into a ship slowly tipping onto one side. Everything on board inescapably slipping to the east coast, suffocating it in the process and leaving the other half of the country hanging on for dear life.

Now to the beginning. For some reason, the first draft of the National Planning Framework (NPF) has slipped across the radar with no major alerts being picked up. But warning bells should be ringing loud as, make no mistake, this document – if indeed the blueprint for the development of our nation out to 2040 – can affect Ireland and its citizens like no other over the next 23 years.

Every single issue in our society today, from housing to health, jobs to crime, can be positively influenced by it. Yes, it’s a broad-brush look at the national canvas, but if those strokes are properly applied the fundamentals will be in place to deliver a brighter future for generations to come. The first draft, however, was, in our view, a whitewash.

Last May, when Fine Gael was in the final stages of selecting its Taoiseach, I was allowed to look ahead on these very pages and identify the opportunity that lay ahead for the new Taoiseach to correct economic inequalities across the nation. To grab that opportunity, write his name, as it were, across the pages of the most glorious chapter in the economic history of our nation.

The opportunity would be unprecedented, but the need even greater. The need to ease the congestion that is gripping Dublin today, the need to make it one of Europe’s finest living cities. The need to achieve that by growing the economies of the regions, to revive the weakest and redouble growth in the strongest.

It would not be a case of stopping Dublin from growing but rather to grow it in a sustainable way, so that it becomes one of Europe’s most liveable cities and does not cannibalise other regions – like it has been doing, unchecked, for far too long.

So when the then-housing minister Simon Coveney, 11 months ago, stepped out into the public and planted the first seeds of the NPF in our minds of what Ireland would look like in 2040, with one million more people and 75pc of those living outside the capital, there was widespread applause.

Regrettably, the first draft of the NPF is so far removed from what Mr Coveney intended that it would appear that his intentions were quickly discarded as soon as he closed the door behind him.

The NPF is disappointing in many respects, above all because it is entirely devoid of the innovation or blue-sky thinking required to create the type of economic balance that would set Ireland out as one of the world’s exemplary economies. It’s as if it took the current economic trends and simply plotted them forward to 2040. No effort to divert, no effort to invent. No courage.

It’s also utterly vague but perhaps deliberately so. We’re told the cities of Cork, Limerick and Galway will grow by 240,000 and that Dublin on its own would grow only marginally more. So what, you may ask? But when you dig deeper, peel back the veneer of vagueness, apply growth trends provided for by the status quo of the past two decades, then it’s no stretch of the imagination to suggest that perhaps as much as three quarters of the one million growth could actually take place in the Greater Dublin Area.

The CSO Regional Population Projections for 2016 to 2031, for example, predicts the Greater Dublin Area will grow its population by all of 400,000 by 2031 alone. Project another 10 years and it’s not too difficult to see that growth not far off doubling. Already, 39pc of the State’s population is based in the Greater Dublin Area and 49pc of employees.

Population is a key indicator, but there are other key barometers and some of them would suggest Dublin is already overheating. Its economy already accounts for, according to Eurostat, almost 50pc of the State’s GDP; compared to London with 22pc of the GDP of the UK. In those same Eurostat figures, the Greek capital, Athens, is coupled with Dublin as cities with close to 50pc of their country’s GDP.

Many economists, in particular, will tell us this is the norm; the flow of population into Dublin is a force of nature; part of a worldwide trend. Yet, look to Germany and you see a nation with an exemplary economic spread. The capital and largest city, Berlin, accounts for approximately 42pc of the population of the five largest cities in the country. Apply the same metric to Ireland and Dublin city would account for roughly 70pc of the population of the five largest Irish cities by the time the NPF, as it currently stands today, would have its work done.

Germany is hardly an economy to discount. When you look at other key indicators, you will see that its fifth largest city, Frankfurt, has an airport with three times the passenger numbers of Berlin Airport and yet the capital has almost five times the population. Also, we see how Frankfurt has become Germany’s banking capital – further evidence of the economic spread across Germany.

THE message from all of this would appear to be that we need to grow as many urban centres as we can and it’s entirely within our capabilities. So let’s not buy the conversation that the flow into Dublin is inevitable. It’s only that way if we allow it – and for the sake of Dublin and the regions, we cannot allow it. Where there’s a will there’s a way, but the question following the NPF first draft must be, is there a will?

Indeed, Shannon Airport, if anything, is evidence of how positive discrimination in favour of the regions can be of benefit. It benefited from significant government support in its early years and the return on that investment was huge. Not alone did airport traffic grow, but tourism and industry catapulted. Today, there are 7,500 people employed in the Shannon Free Zone and Shannon town has a population of not far off 10,000. So, positively discriminate and you will get results.

The NPF’s approach to aviation is an example of how blindly Dublin-centric the plan is. Despite referencing airports in Cork, Shannon and Knock, the NPF’s only aviation-related recommendations are around the development of additional runway and terminal facilities at Dublin Airport, as well as the Metro-North to the airport.

The NPF is not without its positives and undoubtedly the most constructive element is the process. We’ve been afforded an opportunity to make submissions in response to its first draft. Collectively from across the regions, it’s a ‘Return to Sender’ response, with a polite advisory note to pretty much start all over again.

We need to grow as many urban centres as we can and it’s entirely within our capabilities