Failure at central government is a major cause of the persistent disadvantage in the western region, says the State of the West report. Measures from the National Development Plan "are insufficient to redress the infrastructure and investment deficit", it argues.
It is not just inadequate expenditure, but "a failure to sufficiently address the broader regional implications of the current regulatory, legislative and national planning framework", says the report, produced by the Western Development Commission.
The chief executive of the commission, Mr Liam Scollan, says deregulation is a major reason for the growing gap between east and west. "The adverse impact of deregulation, especially at regional level, was underestimated in the National Development Plan," he said.
The plan recognised that State intervention was needed to ensure telecoms companies extended networks to less developed regions. The Government made funding available and invited the companies to tender.
But the report notes that some of these projects have already been cancelled because they were not attractive enough to companies such as Eircom and Esat Telecom.
The commission is arguing that a high-level group of civil servants should assess the gaps in telecommunications and power infrastructure and come up with ways to address these.
The commission believes there is a need for regulatory measures and fiscal interventions to provide incentives to the various companies to invest in less populated areas.
This applies not just to telecommunications, but also to electricity and gas. Once Bord Gais is privatised, it will build pipelines only to large population centres where profit is guaranteed, unless incentives are given.
In the case of gas, the Government has given in to pressure to give a commitment that gas from the Corrib field will be brought to Sligo.
The report also highlights the need for the Government to re-examine some of its assumptions when addressing western development.
For example, the commission says growth does not have to centre on larger towns and cities, nor do existing spatial patterns have to determine future development. The example is given of Carrick-on-Shannon, which has attracted significant investment even though its population in the 1996 census was under 1,900.
The report says there is a need to target "functional economic areas" comprising groups of smaller towns.
It emphasises that past patterns cannot determine future infrastructure investment.
Mr Scollan says top decision-makers have been consumed with responding to the problems of Dublin's overgrowth, but it was a mistake to see western development as a response to those problems. Decision-makers needed to see the intrinsic value of developing the west.
Employment in the seven county western region grew by 11 per cent between 1998 and 2000, but the region had just 15.9 per cent of total employment growth in the past two years. Nearly three-quarters of this growth occurred in the eastern and southern regions, and 26 per cent in the Border, Midland and Western region.
Job-creation statistics are also bleak. The share of agency-assisted employment is falling. In 1999-2000, the western region got 11.9 per cent of the national increase of 22,908 assisted jobs. But of these 2,807, Galway got 78 per cent and Clare a further 15 per cent, leaving the remaining five western counties of Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon and Mayo with a gain of 201 jobs between them.