The Irish attitude to development – what is holding us back?

QUOTE=Frank Taylor]Do you have any data to back up your assertion that ? [/QUOTE]

Thanks to those who have offered some good insights into this issue. As regards ‘data’ to back this up, all I can go on is empirical observation. Consider the following examples:

cost estimate for building a Dublin metro (was estimated at about 3 times – if I remember correctly – the estimate given by Spanish metro builders based on the Madrid network);

apparent reluctance to build a metro (for cost reasons, technical reasons or just because we are inexplicably incapable of doing what most other European capital and second cities have done:
– worth bearing in mind: the London underground was started in the 1860s so how technically challenging is it really by modern day construction standards; many cities of lesser or equal size and wealth have managed to build underground lines (Prague, Sofia, Budapest, Vienna, etc etc);

lack of proper motorway network:
– worth bearing in mind that Ireland (one of wealthiest countries in Europe) has one of the least number of km of motorway per person in western Europe;
– worth bearing in mind that we do not even have huge natural obstacles to overcome – no Alps, no major rivers, no deep ravines, no earthquake sensitive regions. No just flat land and we appear unable to lay a flat road network over it.
– even the roads we do have lack any sense of systematic design so you can go from a motorway to a boreen in the space of five meters. To me this indicates either complicated resourcing issues (as indicated in a contribution to this thread) or a lack of a total plan/vision. I presume it is the latter as all other European countries also face complicated EU resourcing issues, but still manage to have an integrated motorway network;
– delay in completing the M50 – don’t wish to appear archaeologically insensitive, but why? To prevent the destruction of a memorial of our colonial past – will we be preserving British watchtowers along the Armagh border in the years to come??? It is nice to see that our colonial past still stands in the way of our potentially progressive future!

lack of a non-Dublin orientated road and rail infrastructure – evidence – just get in your car and see;

lack of adequate recycling infrastructure – effectively none by western European standards;

construction of high-rise buildings – how many proposals have been blocked by various protest groups;

lack of adequate public transport – try to travel in rural Ireland without a car. In Dublin? – we seem incapable of having a fully functioning integrated ticket system, yet we are so proud of telling people how Ireland was producing so much of the world’s software products in the 1990s;
– case study: compare Dublin with Vienna. Vienna – population 1.55 million people; 6 underground lines (one currently being extended); 60+ tram lines; I don’t know how many bus lines; 7 S-Bahn lines (like Arrow suburban service) and 3 or 4 regional train lines connecting outer satellite towns; special air-link train which is ultra modern. In addition, it has a properly integrated ticketing system and is largely reliable, clean and safe;
– Dublin – population about 1-1.2 million; no underground lines, 2 tram lines just built; I don’t know the number of bus routes – I estimate a couple of hundred but could be wrong; Dart line and how many Arrow lines. No direct air link. No integrated ticketing system and you still pay at the door causing unnecessary delays;
– Why? Bear in mind, Vienna rebuilt its transport infrastructure completely in the last 40-50 years (after destruction of WWII). Dublin has never had its transport system bombed into nothingness and yet is about 30 years behind. Neither did Austria receive the huge EU funding which Ireland did. On the contrary, it has been a net contributor to the EU since it joined in the 1990s. So why is Dublin’s transport development so retarded in comparison?????
– Consider Madrid. Spain was one of the poor men of Europe along with Ireland, Portugal and Greece. Despite all of the hype about the Celtic tiger etc, Spain has been silently purring away in the back ground and has not been boasting in the inflated manner that Ireland has. Result? – look at Spain’s developed underground system in Madrid and suburban rail network; look at the high speed AVE train to Seville and the new high speed line being built to Barcelona, look at the motorway network etc etc. Interesting. Even those traditionally poor countries in the EU are outstripping one of the allegedly wealthiest and they are doing it in style and with modesty. Just travel on the AVE from Madrid to Seville and then travel CIE from Dublin to Cork – you will get all of the data you need to exemplify the severely retarded nature of development in Ireland. As I quoted before – a third world country, just with bad weather.

I could go on, but I don’t see any point. For anyone that has ever stepped outside of the country and compared its infrastructure with other EU states will know how exaggerated all of these claims are about Ireland’s dramatic success.

The only problem that I see with this argument is that the concept of the motorway was very much a pre-WWII idea and was first put into practice in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Indeed to some extent it is very much interlinked with the development of the ‘people’s car’ – the VW Beetle. It is true that the wholescale destruction of Europe’s transport infrastructure during the war provided a clean sheet, so to speak, upon which new infrastructural projects could be designed and built, but it is always worth bearing in mind that the planning and development of motorways in the decade or so after the war was not a priority due to the need for other developments such as re-housing and the lack of a male workforce. It is also worth noting that car ownership in the post year wars was also limited for financial reasons.

I also have some reservations about the theory concerning the piecemeal allocation of EU funds. I am not denying the many difficulties, bureaucratic and otherwise, which surround the allocation and payment of EU monies for infrastructural projects, but all other EU countries must go through the same regulations and many of those countries have fully functioning integrated motor and rail networks (and have had for the past 20 years).

My own believe stems a bit from something which I noted above. The first motorways were built in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy where collective concepts of strong national identity existed and where for many the interests of the collective state where prioritized over the interests of the private individual. It is my opinion that this is one of the reasons that Ireland is incapable of coherent and systematic infrastructural development as the exact opposite mentality exists. It is private wealth and the satisfaction of the individual that are paramount. The collective good of the nation is secondary or even tertiary. This is evident in a number of ways. The comparatively low rates of tax and the hostility to any increase in tax rates highlights the stress that there is on personal wealth rather than on contributing to the overall development of the state. ‘It is ok if the roads etc are built with EU money, just don’t raise my taxes to build them; but just because I’m not willing to pay for them doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to complain about their absence’ mentality. The personal wealth vs. state development dilemma is again seen in the presence of a large number of Mercedes etc on the roads and the often immense one-off houses that dot the country. The money is there (this is why our national statistics indicate our growing wealth by international standards), but it is in private bank accounts rather in the developmental coffers of the state. This is why we have the strange appearance of the latest Mercedes cars on our cow-path roads. Incongruous as joint symbols of wealth, but a real indicator of the way the Celtic Tiger is just an old moggy wearing a fancy fur coat that it doesn’t even own.

The lack of interest and investment in recycling is again evidence of our private interest vs public good conflict. The continual battle that planning authorities and developers have for effectively every project proposed is again evidence of this. I must look for an article on the recent Argos debacle in Sligo where a small coterie of local business people have managed to block Argos from opening in Sligo for whatever selfish reasons – I must post for a link to the story on this. It is a very telling example. The difficulties which exist with regard to public-private partnerships is also evidence of the unease that exists between the two in this country. In addition, attitudes towards littering and the up-keep of public spaces and parks in Ireland again reinforces the concept of the individual holding himself sacred above the collective interests of the state.

Where does this mentality come from – this is another day’s speculation. I think, however, it definitely has some roots in our colonial past and the sense of non-co-operation with the State authorities. It appears that this has become inbred in our thinking and is, ironically, the British empire’s final revenge on us as it is truly preventing us from progressing in a harmonious and long-term manner. It seems we just cannot get over the past and get on with the future.

My last theory is slightly more speculative and open to criticism. I would suggest that the Irish have a natural deficit in their ability to plan things of any sort in the medium to long term. Why? I think most would agree that our natural environment plays an important role in the way society shapes itself and functions. As a major element of our natural environment, we cannot underestimate the role that weather plays on the human mind (consider seasonal disorders, depression, headaches caused by atmospheric pressure etc). It seems logical to suggest that living for centuries in an extremely inconsistent climate which varies not from week to week but from our to hour will inevitably have an effect on the way we think and ultimately on the way we plan and co-ordinate our activities. Pschologically it must have an effect if endlessly we plan our outdoor activities according to short periods of climactic consistency – e.g. we can go to the beach in the morning, but it may or may not rain in 1 hour. This type of narrow confinement of the way we plan and structure our daily lives must play a part in how we plan cognitively other more major parts of our lives. It seems like an odd contention, but I am personally convinced that it has some role to play in our collective thought processes as a nation. Speculation, I know, but possibly of interest.

@asdasd wrote:

Lets get some terms correct. Ireland is newly “rich” but the “wealth” is just an increase in GDP per-capita. With the more correct ( for Ireland) GNP per capita we are 20% less “rich” in real terms. Even there you would have to take into account how income ( not wealth) is distributed – as median wage levels are always less than GDP/GNP per capita, and how much less tells you how much income is pushed to profit, not wages. Ireland is fast becoming a lowish wage economy, in fact. IT ( and other knowledge based) jobs do not register on the private sector jobs produced each year list – in fact construction dominates, and although well paid, is notoriously cyclical. Retail is next.

In any case even if equally distributed GDP per capita is not a reflection of the wealth of an economy, but it’s earnings. Imaging two 60 year olds both paid 100K a year ( to define a good “rich” wage). One of those 60 year olds was earning the equivalent of 100K ( more, or less) for 40 years and invested it, in his house and elsewhere. The other was earning a pittance for most of his life. Who has the bigger better house, with better furniture?

Ireland’s public wealth is insignificant as we were income poor for so long. .

Thank you asdasd for the useful analysis of Ireland’s ‘wealth’. It is interesting when you start getting down to the nitty gritty of economics. However, none of this info or such subtle distinctions are included on the vast amount of propaganda which the Irish population is fed daily about the success of our fair isle. Nor indeed is it used to clarify statistics which show Ireland soaring economically above most other EU states. Maybe it would be useful if the press qualified their statistics a little more often.

Having said that, I do not disagree with the position you take, but I would like to point out that there are many other significantly poorer economies than ours which seem to have invested in some oprerrt expensive furniture. Look, for example, at India. It is building 4.5 miles of motorway per day and New Dehli has a pretty impressive and extensive metro. See link: http://www.delhimetrorail.com/index.htm

Ya – I know India is another Tiger economy and labour is substantially cheaper there in comparison to there, but we can continually come up with excuses to justify our lack of infrastructural development. It seems even when we do have a bit of spare cash, we just continue to buy IKEA furniture – cheap and short-term solutions like LUAS, for example.

Point taken. But what I really meant to say is that it was considered to be a ‘cheaper’ solution to building a metro which to my mind would have been a more worthwhile long-term investment for Dublin.

My primary point here is that no matter what, there always seems to be an excuse for our lack of systematic infrastructural development – in the 70s and 80s, we were too poor, in the 1990s and 2000s, we are too rich (boom is still going on – labour and land costs too high etc). If we wait till the boom is over, surprise – we will be too poor again – we will need to spend the money on other things. In the meantime, other countries – including third world countries – are managing to make progress and we just sit around with half-baked solutions (eg no rail link for airport, LUAS instead of metro, a mess of a road network etc).

This gets me back to the point about there being something lacking in the Irish pysche when it comes to deevloping an overall plan that we are capable of living by and sticking to. Another possible related example of this from history – the lack of a coherent systematic up-rising against the British. 1916 was the historical equivalent of our current infrastructural development. A fragmented and incoherent response to a national problem that should have demanded a coherent and unified national response.