National Development Plan must develop the regions, says ESRI

The National Development Plan should stay focused on developing regions and cities outside Dublin as a policy response to offset economic divergence, a leading ESRI economist has said.

Kieran McQuinn said that there was significant pickup in economic activity in cities such as Cork but there appeared to be issues around providing public infrastructure in the region. Noting calls for the fast-tracking of projects such as the Dunkettle interchange and the M28, he said it seemed public infrastructure was struggling to keep up with increases in private investment.