Disparities in State supports for economic development in parts of the mid-west region were analysed at the 20th Merriman Summer School in Ennistymon, Co Clare, yesterday.
The school, which this year is focusing on the social and cultural features of the Clare and Thomond region, was told that more than 90 per cent of the net gain in employment in State-assisted enterprises between 1993 and 1997 took place in the eastern region and in counties Cork, Limerick and Galway.
Prof Jim Walsh, of the Department of Geography at NUI, Maynooth, said that the per capita output level in the mid-west was about 94 per cent of the average for all regions. In contrast, Dublin and the mid-east region had levels more than 20 per cent above the average.
He added: "Furthermore, the disparity is widening, due especially to increasing differentials in average productivity levels between regions."
Recent data from the Household Budget Surveys undertaken by the Central Statistics Office indicated a significant decline in the relative position of households in the mid-west since 1987.
Between 1987 and 1995, average household income in the region increased by 1.2 per cent, compared to an overall increase of 12.7 per cent in the State as a whole and almost 28 per cent in the midlands.
Within the mid-west region there were also significant disparities between urban and rural areas and within both the urban and rural communities. There had been an increasing concentration of activity around Limerick city and in the Limerick-Ennis corridor, spawning extensive commuter hinterlands along the national routes to Galway and, to a lesser extent, to the south and west of Limerick.
Prof Walsh suggested that new objectives for a regional and local development strategy should include the more effective utilisation of the full range of natural, human and capital resources of less densely settled and more remote locations.
This year's summer school is also debating the wider connection of the Clare and Thomond region to the State and further afield.