Joined-up thinking, there’s a plan

We are not good at joined up planning in this State, writes Brian Lucey.

As the economy improves it is perhaps too much to hope for that the historical approach to planning, of random actions that at best don’t join well or at worst cut across each other, will be supplanted by some degree of rationality.

This lack of ability to plan is not new, although recent events around water and postal issues might suggest so. Take roads for instance. We now have a reasonably decent road network. It is incomparably better, for national primary routes, than was the case 10 or 20 years ago. And yet, the lack of a comprehensive national plan for a motorway network has led to a hodgepodge of bottlenecks and bad design.