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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
5 0 July 2017
T
HE GOVERNMENT is preparing a ‘Plan’ for the
development of the country. It is intended that ‘the
Ireland 2040 Plan’ will be a “high-level document
that will provide the framework for future development
and investment in Ireland).
It will be the overall Plan from which other, more
detailed plans will take their lead, hence the title,
National Planning ‘Framework’, including city and
county development plans and regional strategies. The
National Planning Framework will also have statutory
backing”.
The most noticeable thing is that “statutory backing”
means nothing. A plan gets “statutory” backing just by
being mentioned in legislation. A meaningful plan
should be ‘mandatory. For example legislation might
require government agencies and local authority plans
to merely “have regard to” the plans referred to in the
legislation. It needs to require them to comply with and
implement those plans.
Suspending cynicism for a moment, however, what
might an excellent plan look like.
The first thing would be to work out the criteria that
would dictate the plan. It’s notionally accepted that
these should be criteria that conduce to “sustainable
development” that is development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their needs too. It’s a good
definition and a good goal. The starting point in assign-
ing the earth’s stock of resources must be to minimise
their depletion. The nuts and bolts of sustainable devel-
opment are taken to mandate equal attention to
economic, social, environmental and perhaps cultural
agendas.
The goal of society in our post-religious times is qual-
ity of life, even if many use an inept surrogate, Gross
Domestic Product. Sustainable development conduces
to quality of life, over the long time. If anyone decides
to bother it can be measured to ensure its promotion –
unemployment rate, inequality measured by the Gini
coefficient, water quality, number of opera houses etc.
Planning can be seen as a machine for improving qual
-
ity of life – if we want to.
The upshot of this for this State is a policy imperative
for balanced regional development, with the nature of
the balance being determined by the economic, social,
environmental and cultural imperatives.
Economically there is an imperative to develop
Greater Dublin, particularly Dublin itself. We live in a
foolish world where economics is supereminent,
It would write itself: sustainability requires
development of cities not just Dublin,
curtailment of sprawl, and a right for all
areas not to decline
by Michael Smith
Ireland:
how about a
plan with teeth?
OPINION
July 2017 5 1
The first thing
to notice is that
“statutory backing”
means nothing.
Legislation needs to
require subsidiary
plans to comply with
and implement the
national planning
framework
particularly among policymakers, many of whom
particularly at local-government levels are pro-
moted almost exclusively because of their
performance on economic matters. Environmen-
tally too, it is arguable that if we concentrate
development around the capital, it tends to free
the much bigger rest of the country from the eco-
logical depredations that characterise human
activity, at least in the early part of the twenty-
first century. It is also, on the other hand,
arguable that environmental imperatives sug-
gest pre-existing infrastructure, and the energy
embodied in its manufacture, should continue
in use. In any event, socially it is regressive to
force people to live away from their
communities.
So what does this mean in practice in
Ireland?
First, there must be a plan and it must be
implemented. The last plan, the national spatial
strategy (2002-2020) had no teeth and was not
implemented. Most development was sprawl for
Dublin and one-off housing in the countryside.
With its cynical use of the loaded term statutory
rather than the more practically important term
“mandatory” there is no evidence the Govern-
ment has learnt the lesson. Unfortunately
existing development patterns suggest we can
look to more of the same.
However what we need is development to
counteract Dublin. Realistically this must attract
the development that otherwise would occur in
Dublin, particularly high-tech, high-paying com-
panies that seek sophisticated, urban settings
for their workforces. This suggest we need to
look to divert development that otherwise will
take place in the hinterland of Dublin to cities
outside Dublin, including Cork, Galway, Limer-
ick, Waterford and perhaps a new city in the
midlands. This probably necessitates shifting
government expenditure to these cities, though
not in the ad hoc way Charlie McCreevy
attempted in the early 2000s. Citizens too may
have to be incentivized through tax incentives
for sustainable developments in
the right areas. We might
remember that if a policy is
worth legislating for it is worth
also pursuing through fiscal
measures.
Beyond this there are other
imperatives: for social reasons
stated no area should go into
decline and for environmental
and social reasons people
should live near to their workplaces . The market
must therefore similarly be stacked to promote
the development of existing towns and villages,
the next two layers down from cities. Of course
new energy in the cities outside Dublin would
generate its own knock-on effects in local towns
and villages.
Finally then least sustainable development of
all is one-off housing (apart from people who live
and work on the land) as it cannot be served by
public transport, requires disproportionate
costs in servicing such as postal and electricity
services and risks disengagement as popula-
tions age and cannot leave their isolated homes.
It’s fairly simple and logical: incentivise
people to live in cities outside Dublin; regulate
against development in Dublin’s hinterland
(though development in Dublin itself, particu-
larly high-density developments in areas like
docklands in the city centre is fine); ensure
towns and villages don’t decline; eliminate new
one-off housing.
