Sir, – The political establishment is frustrating the advance of Dublin, blaming healthy vigour for unwieldy congestion. Where it should be nurturing great talent it prefers instead to emasculate it. This policy of pygmy-scale development will not work. Dublin’s parents are denying it the larger trousers it now needs.
While we await the National Planning Framework ,supposed elements have already emerged, and they are a long way from either rational planning or common sense. This summer’s madcap notion, of building a new city in the midlands, serves as a good example. It reminds us of the political sharp practice that gave us the derided decentralisation. What is clear is that forces are still working to undermine Dublin’s growth and blocking the achievement of a rational plan that will advance the welfare of Ireland.
We have been here before. Four decades ago the Buchanan plan commissioned by the government set out a coherent scheme for growth centres that would attract appropriate infrastructural funds. That sensible approach, based on a small number of centres with a realistic prospect of success, was thrown overboard and replaced with a three-card trick, pretending everywhere would get rapid growth. That gave planning a bad name. Politicians promoted the same madness during the Celtic Tiger era; the Upper Shannon region (Cavan, Longford, Leitrim and Roscommon) still contains the most ghost estates per capita. The surprise now is that political parties seem intent on repeating those stunts.
We must keep this regression out of Ireland’s national planning framework. This dysfunction comes from not appreciating the role of city size and urban culture in strategic planning.
Ireland’s progress since the mid-20th century has come from being an open economy, making progress with its talented people properly educated to the task. Planning must understand how our young workforce behaves and how it is attracted to certain workplaces. There has been a fundamental change in lifestyle choices and these new attitudes operate in a totally different way to political patronage.
Larger cities generate specialist markets and the most desirable destinations combine several attractions. The spatial planning framework has to support these reforms. The Government must turn away from the compulsory slow-lane driving it is foisting on the settlement plan. It contradicts the context in which urban Ireland must now compete.
Over the past two decades we have seen the benefits of densification and the new development plan for Dublin city will bring a lot more. Our public transport assets such as the Luas and the Dart need these higher densities that bring viability based on proximity to more passengers. If we follow the simple logic of this economy of scale it is easy to understand why we need a capital city properly competing with its European neighbours.
I support the call of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) for a national infrastructure commission supporting objective decision making. My concern is that the old and failed thinking will pervade the National Planning Framework. However, political patronage cannot operate in public bodies without the acquiescence of professional staff. That was made very clear by the widespread failure to counter the ghost estates, when a basic grasp of sustainable planning would have called a halt.
In light of all we learned from the planning tribunal it is now time to prevent any collaboration in patently unworthy projects that run counter to the common good. They must be challenged, especially where they damage the national interest. Planners working in a public role must be allowed direct access to the Attorney General and the Controller & Auditor General. – Yours, etc,
Dr DIARMUID Ó GRÁDA,
Clonskeagh,
Dublin 14.