Paddy McGuinness holding a poster from the Mayo RTC campaign which took place during the 1990s.PHOTO: ALISON LAREDO.

Head of Western Development Commission slams 'Official Ireland'

THE chairman of the Western Development Commission has claimed that 'Official Ireland' is against the region.

Castlebar-based Paddy McGuinness, a former Mayo Fine Gael county councillor, said it did not surprise him that the West on Track campaign continues to be dismissed as daft by officialdom.

He elaborated: 'Two other campaigns for infrastructural developments in the west were similarly cynically dismissed, Knock airport and GMIT in Castlebar.

“The two latter objectives (Knock airport and GMIT) were eventually achieved but only after many years of torturous campaigning and in the face of opposition from ‘official Ireland’.

“Both projects continue to survive today without any great enthusiasm from the same quarter.

'I think this is evidence of a serious attitudinal problem which prevails at the highest level of administration in Ireland.

“As an example of what I mean, let me quote briefly from a recent article by Liam Scallon: 

'Back in 1997 I took up the position of CEO of the Western Development Commission, a body set up as a statutory agency to come up with policies and investment for change in that particular part of rural Ireland.

'I found an implacable resistance to change on the part of senior government officials. Politicians did not really challenge the thinking of the most senior civil servants and economists.

'In my four and a half years with the commission, we devised literally hundreds of carefully argued and technically robust arguments for rural development, inward investment in small towns, tourism promotion, broadband roll out, agriculture and food processing, indigenous enterprise, infrastructure and so on.

'It was extremely difficult to get any government department to change even modestly - and all this at a time when the country had a wealth of finances to respond.

'The implacable resistance to change by our public policy makers has continued. In the past ten years there has been an 18% increase in agency assisted employment in Dublin while there has been an 18% drop in agency assisted employment in the western region'.

Mr. McGuinness said he regretted to report that his experience over the last four years as chairman of the Western Development Commission has not been any different.

He stated: “I would add our media to those who share an antipathy to any form of balanced regional development.

“How is it that a demand for the reopening of a specific garda station in Dublin raises no issues with the media while a call for any piece of infrastructure outside the M50 is portrayed as ‘parish pump politics’?

“But, I have to say that there is reason for hope. I regard the appointment of a Minister for Rural Affairs as significant. And the appointment of Michael Ring to be that minister is even more significant.

“Minister Ring has established a strong record as a man of action in all of his previous roles and I know he will not be easily put off by departmental indifference. Neither will his colleague Minister Sean Canney who, in a very short time, has shown that he is serious about the provision of infrastructure in the region.

“Together, they offer hope that we will see the beginning of balanced regional development. They offer hope that we will see real delivery for the west of Ireland. They offer hope that the commitments to an Atlantic Economic Corridor in the Programme for Government will prove to be more than just lip-service.

“For my own part, they offer hope that the commitment to ‘enhance the role of the Western Development Commission’ will turn out to be more than a meaningless line in the Programme for Government.

“There is a clear lesson to be learned from the horrific housing crisis we are experiencing at present. And, the message is: Timely action must be taken.

“The housing crisis was predictable but action to prevent it was delayed. We will see a similar crisis in rural Ireland within a decade if we don’t take appropriate action now.”