National interest must supercede political gain
According to the government website the National Spatial Strategy (NSS) is a coherent national planning framework for Ireland for the next 20 years.
The NSS aims to achieve a better balance of social, economic and physical development across Ireland, supported by more effective planning.
To drive development in the regions, the NSS proposes that areas of sufficient scale and critical mass will be built up through a network of gateways and hubs.
“It’s about people, places and potential, making the most of our cities, towns and rural places to bring a better spread of opportunities, better quality of life and better places to live in.”
They are fine words indeed. However, that is all they are — words.
The ink was no sooner dry on the document before the government of the day — Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats — decided to decentralise government departments across Ireland. Again it sounds like something that is great in theory but like everything else, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Government, when it announced its decentralisation policy in December 2003 — through its author, one Charlie McCreevy — it chose to totally ignore its own national strategy.
Its policy as announced was to relocate almost 11,000 public servants from 48 government departments and state agencies to 58 locations across the country — so far so good. But unfortunately many of the locations were not even mentioned in the national strategy. The decision on location was clearly made on purely political grounds and focused on vote garnering. All of this was due to be complete before the end of 2006. As we all know now it was a complete shambles.
Mind you, it did raise house and land prices in the areas chosen and, of course, increased the supply of new houses in the surrounding area.
It brought short-term prosperity to local communities but also contributed to the current economic problems, the empty buildings and the ghost estates in the ‘middle of nowhere’. It was planning on the back of a fag box and we have everything to show for it.
We can only hope that the decision on the location of the new National Children’s Hospital did not have the same short-term political drivers.
What we do know is that there are very many eminent people opposed to its proposed location beside the Mater Hospital on Eccles Street in downtown Dublin. What we also know is that the chairman of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board resigned for unexplained reasons and that Mary Harney seems reluctant to clarify why.
On the surface it does not make sense to place the hospital on such a location, at least, from a planning perspective. It’s in the middle of a city which is already experiencing serious traffic problems.
There is already poor accessibility, space is constrained and parking is a nightmare. Indeed, it will require several basements to accommodate the 1,000 or so car parking spaces that will be required. Most importantly, there is a €200 million shortfall, from the total €650m required, in its funding requirements. Government cannot provide it. So the private sector will have to come up with the money.
Too much money has been wasted over the years on political decisions and on vanity projects. This is certainly not a vanity project and we can only hope that the most cost effective location is chosen.
It’s still not too late for those concerned to look to their motives. In the interests of all citizens, national infrastructure decisions should not be made for political or short-term reasons.
