Coveney charts out the future for rural Ireland

Minister Responsible for Planning Simon Coveney inherited Food Harvest 2020, and built upon it with Food Wise 2025, so planning at the macro level is nothing new to him.

The Cork TD’s job title now actually includes planning, along with housing, community and local government. The plan to guide us into the middle of the century will be developed over the next six months or so by the minister. His starting point is recognising the challenges posed by significant projected population growth.

“What do we know? We know that in 20 to 25 years’ time there will be an extra million people in Ireland, and twice as many people over the age of 65,” the former minister says. “Half a million extra houses will be needed, and half a million extra jobs.”

Learn from mistakes of the past

The last plan, the National Spatial strategy, was launched in 2002. It was dogged by the controversy surrounding decentralisation plans to move public-sector jobs around the country and was finally abandoned in 2013.

A key focus of that plan was 20 large towns. The likes of Sligo, Mallow, Limerick Athlone and Ennis, were dubbed “gateway” and “hub” towns. Not one of the designated urban areas feature in the 20 fastest growing towns since 2002. Instead, the growth was concentrated around Dublin, with satellite towns like Navan and Gorey, and former villages like Lusk and Sallins.

“Without a policy-changed scenario” at least three quarters of the extra million people “will congregate around Dublin”, the Minister believes.

He wants to ensure that development is more balanced. “We need to make best use of the infrastructure that we have, and then identify the key capital expenditure projects.”

A key priority will be to link the other major cities – Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and Galway – by better roads, but that will not be cheap. The Cork-Limerick motorway will cost €1bn. Roads in the northwestern quarter of the country, adrift of the “spokes on the wheel” series of Dublin -centred motorways, lag behind the rest of the country.

There will be controversy around the final outcome, he admits, as hard choices will have to be made, but he wants the Dáil to endorse the plan, and a large-scale public engagement. “We haven’t built a new hospital in this country since the early 1980s.”

Relevance

Coveney stresses the importance of planning to the viability of rural towns and villages. For farming directly, the plan will encompass Food Wise 2025, rather than replicate it, but there is still much at stake.

Planning

The Minister allayed any fears that one-off houses will be banned under the plan. “Half of the 15,000 houses built in 2016 were one-off houses,” he says.

Brexit

Coveney is very definite on the strength of Ireland’s case for being uniquely disadvantaged by Brexit, and of the need for Brussels to step up and help to fund our coping strategy.

Much of the analysis of last year’s general election focused on the sense that rural Ireland did not feel any recovery.

“When Fine Gael went into government in 2011 there was 15% unemployment, now it’s 7.2%. Some people don’t want to accept that there are some good things – there is often a focus on what isn’t working rather than on what is.”

Have your say

The public consultation on the Ireland 2040 plan is open online.