Sir, - The current phase of historically high economic growth has generated major environmental changes which are changing the shape of Ireland as we know it. These changes are seen in the increasing traffic problems suffered in cities and towns, especially Dublin; the escalating costs of housing; the physical expansion of our cities and county towns, and in the dominant influence of the larger urban centres on their regional hinterlands. We must now face up to the serious challenge of assessing the long-term impact of these developments.
The Government is reacting to the challenges, not in any co-ordinated way, but with a series of ad hoc "fire brigade" responses - the Bacon Report, more zoning and increased densities to solve the housing crisis; the Luas project, the Port Tunnel and "Operation Free Flow" schemes to solve Dublin's traffic problems, etc. But we really have no idea of the long-term effects and there is little evidence of any strategic planning or research.
For example:
Is Dublin now too large in relation to the country as a whole?
Is the present low-density Dublin region making it more difficult to establish an environmentally acceptable transport system?
Is Dublin Port wrongly located in relation to the City as it now has evolved? It is proving extremely expensive to improve access to it? Should its long-term future be reassessed?
Is the growth of provincial centres and county towns, most of which has been fuelled by tax incentives, sucking the economic life out of the smaller towns and villages?
Is there any coherent philosophy underpinning the roads programme?
What about the railways, and other forms of community transport? The entire basis of our present economic growth is on the unlimited use of private transport.
What then about sustainable development? It is the current buzz word but nobody in power has defined what it really means, and in a manner clearly understood by the ordinary person.
There are many more issues which could be added to this list.
There is now an urgent need for an organisation to co-ordinate a comprehensive research approach to these issues and pose relevant questions which need to be answered. Once upon a time we did have such a body, An Foras Forbartha (The National Institute for Physical Planning and Construction Research). It was established in 1964 as a United Nations-sponsored body. Its primary aim was to provide research and guidance on the environmental impacts of the national modernisation programme then commencing.
In its lifetime, it was responsible for research into all aspects of the environment from settlement patterns, building form, land use, transportation, water resources, building technology, etc. Unfortunately, many of its findings which would have been relevant to today's situation were ignored. But then environmental concerns were considered to be somewhat elitist and the Celtic Tiger had not yet come among us. Today, when we urgently need fundamental research and strategic planning, we do not have it. It now seems a decision of disastrous proportions to close down An Foras Forbartha in 1987, disperse, and eventually lose all the skills it had developed over the years.
The Government should consider establishing a broadly similar organisation which would serve the community in the years ahead by providing a comprehensive research resource which would co-ordinate and assess our future development patterns, whether they are ones of continuous growth or indeed recessions, as the case may be. We can no longer make it up as we go along. - Yours, etc., Patrick Shaffrey,
Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1.