Dáil debates

Thursday, 28 January 2010

Mid-West Task Force: Statements

 

12:00 pm

Photo of Michael D HigginsMichael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this topic. At present I represent a constituency from a neighbouring western region, but I am familiar with Limerick, in particular. It is the city in which I was born and where my father spent most of his working life. It is important that we are positive in responding to the interim report of the task force. I wish to be positive in what I have to suggest. The report highlights the deficiencies generally in respect of regional thinking. It is impossible to deal with the matter in detail in ten minutes but I wish to make one or two points I believe are important.

It is impossible to develop a strategy that one can effect quickly for any one region without considering its connection with other regions. Most people who write reports on regional policy generally use a title such as "towards a policy for the regions". I refer to one illustration of this, that is, the recent report from the Dublin Institute of Technology on the development of a North-South corridor that would be located along the eastern side of the island. It is in contradiction to the proposals made for the Atlantic Way. It is also rather methodologically flawed and ignores some fundamentals in respect of regional thinking.

It is best if I make matters plain. If one has undeveloped resources in one region, they sometimes co-exist with urban dis-economies in another region. If one analyses them clearly, the history of these two documents shows there has been significant urban dis-economies in the greater Dublin area. This has led to an overspill in respect of housing and transport and much other unsustainable activity in the adjoining counties to Dublin. The new North-South corridor, as proposed by DIT, would be both impractical and unsustainable, apart from the fact that it challenges the assumptions in the Atlantic Way. This is a matter on which there are further opportunities to speak. There is an unfortunate distinction in the report between the members of the task force and the stakeholders. It is also somewhat regrettable that some of the unsubstantiated assumptions of some of the task force have fed in to the report. A rather casual engagement has taken place with the real interests of stakeholders, for example, the workers.

I will be specific now, which is necessary in a ten minute speech. In response to this interim report, one could arrive at one general conclusion, that is, the importance of the retention and creation of employment and the provision of opportunities for those who have been made unemployed involuntarily. This is surely a central matter and I find it very difficult to understand why innovative strategies have not been taken. I refer to the particular example of when Digital closed in Galway. I was a member of Cabinet at the time and Dr. Mike Cooley carried out a skills audit on the workforce of Digital. This led to the successful establishment of several new companies by people who had worked in that computer sector and who brought new businesses into existence, such as one involving the weighing of cattle and other such developments. These were small clusters of new opportunities.

It is very important to realise the impact of Mike Cooley's work. It included the grouping of worker skills and new skills, and the creation of new enterprises was invaluable. It would have been useful if he had been brought in to examine what was possible for the Dell employees. People may say something like this has been attempted already. So be it. I am acquainted with Dr. Cooley, who is from Tuam. He has spent a good deal of his lifetime as an expert in such areas as the development of special equipment necessary for disabled people, and this is his current interest. This is the type of positive suggestion I wish to offer. I believe his contribution could be a good deal more practical than some of the people who I have identified in the task force from the public statements as those who beat a very old, battered drum.

It is nonsense to suggest that if one reduces the spending power of people in the region generally, one will somehow have made a contribution to overall economic recovery or development. This obsession is unfortunate and is something of a latter day fall-out from an old version of economic thinking. The suggestion is that if one interfered with the minimum wage and those on low income, one would automatically have done something of benefit. It would be far better to consider the number of graduates emerging from the higher level colleges in the region. They are available for a series of internships and short-term employments as part of the generation of new opportunities in tourism. Given its demography, the region is full of opportunities in the caring economy. Ireland, at its highest point of net income earned, was second from the bottom in Europe in terms of social protection. One could emerge with a new economy, with social protection enhanced and useful social and caring skills recognised as employment.

Others will take the opportunities that exist in respect of the green economy and other opportunities. As president of the Labour Party, I am disappointed with the response to some of our very practical proposals in the party's document entitled Jobs and Recovery. The proposal was issued prior to the budget. This is not simply a partisan view. Limerick and the entire region has many opportunities.

In analysing the interim report and the Government's response, I failed to see an acceptance of the importance of connectivity between various agencies. We should all draw breath and consider what we are trying to create by way of a new start towards genuine regional thinking. This should be something entirely new. If there is simply a rehearsal of what everyone has done descriptively within the various agencies, it does not constitute a platform for a new departure. Recently, I visited Limerick and spoke at the university and I noted that regeneration is a crucial part of the recovery and that there must be a new approach towards skills.

People live in a particular space and that space is not disconnected from the overall quality of life in the region. Let us consider the European model. No city recovers without a new connection to its hinterland. I recall working in the first factories created in the Shannon development area and I travelled in from Newmarket-on-Fergus. I took part in a debate with Pat McNabb. He had a choice to make on whether Shannon town should be redeveloped as a new town or whether all the villages in the hinterland should be developed. There is some connectivity but I do not see it between the authorities, which carry the burden of a fairly authoritarian managerial system.

I acknowledge what is in the interim report in respect of governance. However, one wonders whether the capacity for a new start exists. I refer to what is possible with Limerick. I took the decision to move the chamber orchestra to Limerick and I am aware of what is possible in the university there. A connection between the University of Limerick and its hinterland and NUI Galway and its hinterland is immensely rich in opportunities in the creative industries, whether in film, music or the various visual arts. There is enormous advantage to having airport access and being easily able to relate to the international community. I wish that could happen.

In regard to what I heard in the announcements, what is in the interim report and what to do if one wants to drive this on, I have two quick points to make. There is immense benefit in seeking to purchase patents, technologies and forms of research and development and putting them into a common pool to which people would have access to develop new kinds of jobs.

Something pathetic, which this House must stop, is underfunded VECs. Vocational education committees all over the country wish to provide courses for people who want to go back to education. They are, however, not able to do so because of the staffing cap. We should take a decision today that where people want to get back to education at several different levels, the cap on recruitment of teachers, which would make that possible, must be eliminated. That is relevant not only to Limerick and that region but to every other region in the country.

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