Balanced regional development gets the silent treatment - Harkin

INDEPENDENT TD Marian Harkin said she was “horribly disappointed” that the worsening regional disparities didn’t merit as much as a mention in the ministerial speeches in the Dáil on budget day. “In a week when the EU downgraded the development status of the Northern and Western Region for a second time in three years, and a week when plummeting sterling is set to cause mayhem to cause cross-border trade, I am astounded that neither Minister Donohoe nor Minister McGrath referred to the urgent need to recalibrate regional policy and address the issue of imbalanced regional development,” the Sligo Leitrim Deputy said.

The Northern and Western Region was recently downgraded by the EU from a region ‘in transition’ to a ‘lagging region’.

“This is significant for all the wrong reasons, especially for those of us who live in that region,” Deputy Harkin said, “and it should be significant for the whole country. I would have expected some reference to it in the principal budget speeches and some commitment to balanced regional development, but I heard nothing. It is really scary stuff when you look at a map of the EU and you see our region numbered among some of the poorest performing regions in the Union. Deputy Harkin reminded the government that, in 2006, the GDP per capita in the Northern and Western Region was 105 per cent of the EU 27 average, “It is now at 84 percent of the EU average,” she said, “that is 21 percentage points lower than it was sixteen years ago. If that isn’t worthy of a mention in a budget speech, what is?” the TD asked. Deputy Harkin went on to describe a crucial partnership agreement recently concluded between the Irish government and the EU for ERDF regional funding as a shambles bordering on the negligent. “We could have secured €240 million in total for the Northern and Western Region, but instead, we got €217 million, just because government departments would not co-fund it with an extra €23 million. In the context of a budget well in excess of €10 billion what sort of a message is sent to the people in this region by a government that refuses to devote a fraction of this sum to unlock opportunities for development and growth in their region?

“Where is the positive discrimination to support a region whose development status continues to fall behind the rest of the country? Where is the higher level of capital investment in the region’s infrastructural assets that is so badly needed? Where is the support for research, development and innovation that will drive the competitive advantages of the Northern and Western Region,” she asked.

“I’m deeply concerned that the slide towards irreversible regional imbalance continues on a downward spiral. Despite all the talk about balanced regional development in the Programme for Government, today’s budget is completely silent on it, this is disheartening in the extreme,” Deputy Harkin concluded.