The Government decentralisation programme has the potential to do serious damage to Ireland's future prospects if the successful team at the heart of policy-making is broken up, the president emeritus of the University of Limerick has warned.
Dr Edward M Walsh said decentralisation proposals such as the National Spatial Strategy and the Government decentralisation programme tended to win positive responses from the regions. With such widespread l approval, there was a real danger the plans would be deemed as good for Ireland as a whole.
"But there is serious reason to fear that a lose-lose strategy is now emerging," Dr Walsh said. "On one hand, the National Spatial Strategy will not generate the desired major counterpole to Dublin, while on the other, the Government decentralisation programme threatens to fragment the national policy team that can take much credit for shaping Ireland's remarkable economic success story." The imbalance between Dublin and the regions would only be corrected when regional cities offered the scale and advanced infrastructure necessary to attract knowledge-driven enterprise.
Dr Walsh, addressing the Limerick Chamber of Commerce, said while the National Spatial Strategy lacked the focus necessary to create a competitive counterpole to Dublin, it was unlikely to do much harm.
"However, the Government decentralisation programme has the potential to do serious damage to Ireland's future prospects if the successful team at the heart of policy-making is broken up.
"This team can take credit for shaping and guiding strategy that has moved Ireland from being one of Europe's poorest countries to one of its most successful in a remarkably short time," Dr Walsh stated.
He said a proposal to relocate Ireland's parliament with its 15 associated government departments to a new western counterpole, while being both a dramatic and demanding undertaking, could be justified both in terms of spatial strategy and good governance.
"However, if the scale of such a move is perceived to make the prospect unrealistic," Dr Walsh added, "it would then make admirable sense to concentrate on devolving functions to new regional administrations while focusing effort on the Cork, Limerick, Galway corridor as the most likely means of creating a viable counterpole to Dublin."