recentralisation not decentralisation
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It’ll be a two-tier civil service, and you heard it here first
FIANNA FAIL and its Progressive Democrat partners love big ideas but the problem with the plan to decentralise the civil service is that it is not big enough. The plan, as outlined on budget day, is simply too timid to work effectively. Essentially, the proposal to move eight departments from their existing Dublin base means splitting the civil service in half. It won’t work.
Forget all the guff about teleconferencing and video-link communications. The senior civil servants who stay in Dublin are destined to become the new elite among the mandarin class while those who opt to move will actually be opting out.
We are sure that Mary Harney, the tanaiste, and Charlie McCreevy, the finance minister, did not intend to create a two-tier civil service but that is what they are going to get. If they were serious about decentralisation they would have given serious thought to moving the entire government apparatus to a new single location outside Dublin, setting up an administrative capital, a proposal we were promoting here some two-and-a-half years ago.
Moving the seat of government is dramatic but not radical. There are plenty of precedents, the most recent being the German government’s decision to move its capital from Bonn to Berlin.
By announcing a 10-year plan to shift the seat of power from Dublin to the western seaboard the government would allow adequate time for civil servants to sort out their domestic arrangements.
The advantages to be gained from such a move are obvious. Civil servants are not responsible for creating the pressure points that have blighted the capital but their absence from the equation, together with the multiple support services and other organisations that would follow in their wake, would transform both Dublin and the new administrative capital.
Sadly, it looks like another great opportunity has been missed.
from the business pages of the Sunday Times yesterday….
any opinions?
Looks like the city for the west proposal for Kilkelly has resurfaced.
ha,ha…now that was utter nonsense…the new city. i actually agree with the article. however i can’t see it happen. much as i hate saying it…dublin is the capital of our country and has a monopoly of infrastructure that is needed for a government. a ten year plan may not be enough as new offices and roads would have to be built for it to move elsewhere and i would sugest athlone(not for any particular love of that town but because it is the centre of the country with fairly equal distance from everywhere and for u dubs it’s only an hour away from dublin. as it is a gateway city then what better way to improve it’s prospects than moving all this down. it would also open the west for development. unfortunately a pipe dream…
If they were serious about decentralisation they would have given serious thought to moving the entire government apparatus to a new single location outside Dublin, setting up an administrative capital, a proposal we were promoting here some two-and-a-half years ago.
Moving the seat of government is dramatic but not radical. There are plenty of precedents, the most recent being the German government’s decision to move its capital from Bonn to Berlin.
What sort of example is the Bonn/Berlin one to use? It completely contradicts their argument. Berlin is a city of almost 3.5 million, whilst Bonn is a city of only 300,000. The reason for the movement back was due to reunification.
i dont understand why it’s voluntary – they should force people to relocate. We are civil servants after all. Serviture is the game.
i read an article in one of the papers over the weekend that there are thousands more wanting to move out of dublin than the gov announced. the problem however is where they are going. i am not about to give out about the gov again but dept of the marine in one of the few landlocked counties… i don’t see the sense in that one unless they are taking the piss out of us! but anyhow… i don’t see the problem and r0_g good point however somtimes not that easy
Perfect Solution build a new city beside an Airport make the CC’s work 100 hour weeks
with benchmarking they should have enough cash to keep the airport open for all the holidays they will need.Putting the Dept of Tourism well over an hours drive from the nearest airport with flights to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam was worse than Marine in Cavan
true enough. but i would say equal to it. while i agree with the policy of de-centralisiation i have to question the validity of where they were put. enviornment in wexford/waterford…etc,etc… it smacks of jobs for the boys..
It does but not as obviously there is a massive difference between M Cullen and some of the others, I don’t think you could put him in the same league.
Looking at Parlon on the week in politics last night acting like a twelve year old making faces behind Marty Morrisey at Semple Stadium
While being dressed down by an agitated McCreevy, the tail truely has become worse than the donkey
Regarding the Airport there is a guy called John Kasarda in the States who has developed the Idea of the Aerotropolis it is the big thing in Asia and there are two or three in the US, with Schipol being the prime European example.
The tail is the PDS
Tom Parlon the ex-leader of the IFA
Mae Sexton is an ex-hospital canidate
This is the party that promised to keep an eye on FF in return for electing them. They are as parochial as FF ever were.
Certainly they have no right to say they are keeping an eye on people such as
Michael Martin
Brian Cowen
Tom Kitt
I feel let down having given McDowell something
Wishing the dept of the Gealteacht good luck in Kilkelly.
Can the rest of this sorry mess please be called off particularly Killarney and Portlaoise
Knock represents a $200m min asset to build possibly you could develop a mini Schipol here
Thats cool, Ill send you the link in a mo
But I actually think that if anything was going to be decentralised this makes sense.
Given that virtually all Gealtacht areas are in the West, locating the dept of the Islands beside an airport actually makes better sense than having it in Mespil RD
http://www.iavi.ie/pvaluer/index.asp
‘Advent of the Aerotropolis’
The article is good but having done a dissertation on the subject there is a lot more than is in the article.
that is good alright. the linear city effect really. i can’t remember the name of the guy who first proposed it…long time ago that i saw that.the effects and consequences of such urban planning. nice theory. i wouldn’t mind reading it if u don’t mind as a lot more can be commented on. of course does it work and would it work in ireland. are we developed enough to either take advantage of it or are our planning laws too outdated to permit even thinking of such new and radical ideas( not the fact it was thought of decades ago). hmmmm! urban design lectures beginning to return! 🙂
Spine and cluster development, orbital links to unify the development.
But it has to be done perfectly, if you look at the multi-modality of it. Everthing except sea
Road
Rail
AirTo get it right you need serious broadband capacity, IT support etc.
It is more than simply an urban form it is the solution to edge city it is a properly planned New City
sea is being outdated now anyway. it is being marginilised to be a secondry form of transport so wouldn’t worry about that too much. yea. of course broadband(mind u i have it and to be honest it’s not that hot) but the infrastructure would have to be top notch. not only the initial main highway but secondry highways as it would encourage other cities of similiar form and there for links by road would be necessary.
it would be a new city but i don’t beieve it would irradicate the edge city as there would always be creeping on to the countryside surronding unless strict laws were made but also the advent of apartment living and the abolishing of this crazy 5 storey rule that for some reason seems to apply to most towns and cities around the country. mind you for a new city a whole new set of rules would have to be arranged so that would bypass that. it’s a form that would need serious consideration for modern ireland to service these gateway hubs the gov devised. and would allow for development of nearly every area of country…very interesting indeed. and by the way cheers for the website link..lots of interesting articles to get throughAs I say Fin,
Being a consultant to An Taisce does not mean that you don’t look at the bottom line.
As for the West it needs growth, anyone who ignores that is a Gobshite
I lost the web link but a group based in Galway city have developed a blueprint for a new city.
It looked good on an initial examination and it could work, I feel.
Realistically apartment living could be given a decent shot, as with land prices lower, plot ratios of 3:1 could be used with site coverage of 0.5:1 giving decent recreational space.
The development of sub standard apartments in Dublin in the early 1990’s was and continues to be a major stumbling block to perception.
Who could be expected to raise a family in some of those boxes. Any architect who signed their name to some of this stuff should be stripped of their letters.
to be honest it’s the theory i’m interested in because it’ll never happen in ireland. it would be nice to even set up a study on the feasability.
and u r still an architect. i don’t share my bosses view on architecture but best to leave that to the other thread. of course opunions differ but thats good for debate and i never insulted personally but i did the organisation. it was getting quite hot yesterday so i thought i would leave it til today but i think alan has a point to a certain degree but i think the whole insults have a negative impact on everyone. any way back to architecture/urban design.
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