O’Brasilia
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Brasilia-style capital proposed
Liam ReidA key adviser to the Government on science and technology has suggested that the current decentralisation proposals should be abandoned in favour of creating a new Brasilia-style administrative capital city for the country.
Dr Edward Walsh, the former president of the University of Limerick, has suggested Athlone or the Shannon region as a suitable location for the new capital, which would also house a new Dáil building and Government headquarters.
He said that such a bold move offers the greatest potential to correct the current bias towards Dublin.
Dr Walsh believes the current Government decentralisation plan has been “hurriedly prepared without access or consultation”.
In a speech on decentralisation, to be delivered to senior civil servants tomorrow, Dr Walsh suggests that the Government’s programme is a pre-election gimmick similar to the abolition of rates in 1977.
Dr Walsh is also chairman of the Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, which advises the Government on science and technology policy issues.
While welcoming in principle the decentralisation initiative as “a splendid national opportunity to correct the Dublin imbalance”, he said this had not been availed of.
The current proposals could “serious endanger the future effectiveness of central government and Ireland’s wellbeing”, he said, and aspects needed to be re-examined.
He believes the current proposals to move civil servants to 53 locations would fragment central government, slow decision-making and undermine the national spatial strategy.
Dr Walsh has suggested using a regional city or group of cities as a focal point for decentralisation, “forming a strong cluster that would stimulate the emergence of a counterpole to Dublin”. Another is to move the administrative capital in its entirety to a new location.
He cites examples from around the world, including Canberra, Washington DC and Brasilia.
Athlone, “because of its central location”, is one suggested location, but would need to be transformed into a city of “significantly greater scale”, he added.
He also suggests the 600-acre Dromoland site as a site for a new parliament and government building complex, with Galway, Limerick, Shannon and Ennis providing the core infrastructure.
Is it true that there is a bomb shelter for Government Officials in Athlone?
ha,ha,ha,ha…didn’t hear that before…. don’t know why cos if it was me that would be the first place i would do…ha,ha..that’s hilarious…
I know it sounds really funny, but it is one of those things that I have heard over and over again. I really don’t know if it is true or not though. The Swiss build bomb shelters under quite alot of their buildings. I stayed in one once for a while. Mad…mad… mad experience!
Building a new city and making it the capital rather than Dublin? I dunno…its worked for other countries I guess, but I dunno…
I’d have to think about it before I’d jump on board.
It’s not a bomb shelter but it was an area for emergency sittings of the Cabinet.
I think it was put in place at the height of the Cold War and equipped with gas masks, iodine etc.
It’s underneath one of the large buildings in the army barracks but is decommissioned now.
Was in it one time – was like stepping on to the set of Dr Strangelove.
It had large maps of Ireland on the walls, rotary phones, weather equipment and paperwork for noting radiation levels etc.
Fascinating but presumably utterly useless had anyway tried to actually bomb it.Thank you for that Kefu. It clears things up slightly. Were the doors sealed?
Originally posted by kefu
It’s not a bomb shelter but it was an area for emergency sittings of the Cabinet.Almost as good as the 1940 plan to put neon signs up over the city of DUBLIN to deter the germans from confusing Ireland with Liverpool.
A well conceived article but it would only be worth one Dail seat and it wouldn’t favour messers O’Donaghue or Parlon 😡
I think the doors were sealed and I vaguely recall the basement of having lead in the lining of walls, roof etc. Could be wrong.
I am suprised that there is not more discussion about the plan to build a new administrative capital instead of Dublin.
I wonder what its actual impact would be?
The last time Dublins Capital City satus was removed the City went into decline!
Are people not commenting because they simply do not see it as a realistic possibility, or are people just thinking about it alot?
It might just speed up the inevitable connection of Dublin with Athlone and eventually Galway!!!!!:) 😀
I think people aren’t discussing it because it’s so implausible.
There’s not one good reason for this apart perhaps from an infrastructure deficit, which could be easily addressed by the money it would cost to build a new capital.
I think Dublin would go into serious decline with an abundance of historical building stock probably allowed go to rack and ruin.i like the idea of putting up big DUBLIN neon signs, it sounds really cool. hey, why didn’t liverpool put up big DUBLIN neon signs during the war?
Originally posted by Paul Clerkin
I just see it as completely implausible – up there with Dublin having an English premiership club….Are 53 seperate locations any better?
There are certain back office functions that can be transfered piecemeil but moving the main departments will make efficient administration impossible and will magnify the unsustainable nature of settlement patterns in Celtic Tigre Ireland. Every civil servant will be car dependent as the public transport network is incapable of getting CC’s from Department to department under the current plan.
It is as the author suggests the greatest Divvy up in political history and he is right to compare it to the abolition of rates in 1977 which left a 17 year legacy of financial hardship.
All so that this inept government can retian control of the local government they bankraupted in 1977, the tribunals should be scrapped as the protagenists have nothing onto this scam.
a) its a barking idea, we should be struggling to provide dublin with the infrastructure its needs rather than coping out and trying to make dublin a lesser city and hence a better fit for its current crappy infrastructure. if we move the capital to athlone we’ll have a completely crap capital and a kind of crap main city, we need to make dublin a great world city.
b) ed walsh has a huge influence on government thinking on third level education and science policy and this is the sort of radical and innovatative but not actually clever idea that typifies government thinking in this area. just because change is needed doesn’t mean any change is good.
The big question that I had as I originally read a newspaper article was this:
Why is an expert in science and technology stating this? Surely he should be sticking to his own area of expertise! If someone related to planning or architecture made a suggestion relating to science or something else I am sure that they would soon be dismissed on a grand scale!?
Originally posted by phil
Why is an expert in science and technology stating this? Surely he should be sticking to his own area of expertise!There is little question that of all the Universities in Ireland UL has progressed most over the past 15 years, from being a regional National Institute of Higher Education it has become a highly respected University in a relatively short period of time.
It has done this not by becoming better in one field but by combining a diverse offering of relevant courses in one location, unlike DIT it has emulated the NUIs and TCD by doing it on one campus.
UL has like the other Universities built real connections with local industies which has led to tangiable agglomeration economies. The Shannon region has a disproportionate share of Foreign Direct Investment built upon its educational and infrastructural base.
His theory that one site should be selected as an administrative second capital is based upon his experience of planning and executing what many would have said was impossible in his own field.
I agree with his site selection, as it is closer to Shannon airport than the Dail is to Dublin airport and is closer to the Ennis rail line than the Dail is to Heuston.
It is therefore sufficiently connected to capitilise on the potential for agglomeration economies, which after all is what spatial planning is all about.
Given that the planning profession has already expressed serious reservations about decentralistion in its current format he is not suggesting anything really new, but more an opinion that a suitable site exists.
I agree Castletroy was an ambitious location for a University, well done!!!!! 🙂
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