"Rural Ireland is recovering despite claims to the contrary"

Brendan Burgess

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A great article by Dan O'Brien in yesterday's Sunday Independent.

http://www.independent.ie/business/...-despite-claims-to-the-contrary-34593191.html

And the independents want a Minister for Rural Affairs!

"Employment is probably the best indicator of the country's economic health. A regional breakdown of jobs growth shows very clearly that the recovery is not isolated to the capital (the CSO divides the country into eight regions in its huge quarterly jobs survey).

Indeed since the turnaround three years ago, the Border, Midlands and South-East have all registered stronger employment growth than Dublin, as the accompanying chart shows."

 
I had not realised the extent to which Dublin subsidises the rest of the country

"Urban to rural transfers

The case for more taxpayers' money to be channelled to rural areas is often made by rural TDs. That large transfers from urban to rural Ireland already occur is heard less frequently. For instance, in terms of income tax, corporation tax, capital gains and VAT, Dublin pays 55pc of the total despite only having 28pc of the population, according to Revenue data by county.

This can also be seen in the household income data compiled by the CSO. In 21 counties, households receive more social transfers than they pay in tax in the aggregate. The exceptions are Dublin, three of its adjoining counties (Kildare, Meath and Wicklow), Kilkenny and Cork. With the exception of Kilkenny, all these counties are among the most urban in the country. When farm payments from the EU's Common Agricultural Policy are added, amounting to €1.7bn in 2014, the scale of transfers from urban areas to rural is larger again."
 

If we strip out the effects of

- corporation tax arising from profit transfers by multinationals with Dublin operations.
- VAT on country people's shopping in Dublin, net of Dubliners' tourist spend in the sticks.

the difference will be a lot narrower.
 
Corporation tax may be an issue but the days of the country folk going up to "da big schmoke" to do the shopping is long gone.
 
Purple said:
Corporation tax may be an issue but the days of the country folk going up to "da big schmoke" to do the shopping is long gone.
Click to expand...

Don't think so. You obviously don't be in Blanchardstown or Dundrum of a Saturday or Sunday.
 
Public services are charged at a flat rate in the country. The actual cost of maintaining, delivery etc is far lower in areas of high population density than in isolated rural locations. This is a massive net transfer to rural from urban.
 
T McGibney said:
Don't think so. You obviously don't be in Blanchardstown or Dundrum of a Saturday or Sunday.
Click to expand...
It's full of Dubs doing their shopping, along with Dubs that have been forced out of Dublin because of high property prices as a result of all the country people living in Dublin
 
The article has no mention of emigration which has definitely hollowed out rural areas vs. the cities.

Read a fascinating article about investing in hub cities, that population centres with a size of 250k-300k are a minimum size to grow organically.

The hub theory would say we build up & invest in (say), Limerick, Waterford & Sligo to get them to the point where they can stand alone. Might not be very politically acceptable, but think it's the way to go rather than spreading investment too thin.
 
To me, the headline is misleading. It should have said "Rural Ireland is recovering........Except in places where it is not recovering". Reading down through the article there are a number of references to the West stuggling with employment figures for example, the West is a fair bit of rural Ireland.

There is some pickup in places in rural Ireland and a lot of people doing great work in trying to start up their own businesses, but in most places the big employers have gone. In my town which has a population of around 15000, I can't think of a single employer outside of Tesco's that would employ more then 50 people. 3 major factories have gone over the last 10 years and none come in. The high street is half empty. I fear the quality of jobs in rural Ireland has diminished.

What is clear is that the traffic to Dublin is now far worse then perhaps 5 years ago, my commute is probably 10-15 mins longer as a result. People are coming back to work but having to travel. They often cannot relocate because of the price of housing in Dublin or negative equity. That all has an impact on the quality of life. It makes me laugh to hear the Dubs giving out because they had to travel an extra 25 miles to watch a match last Sunday, poor babies!!, some of us have no choice but to drive 100-150 miles a day simply to get to work.

Perhaps some of what the rural TD's are saying is an exaggerated perception but if you live in a small country village or town where the Garda Station has closed, most of the pubs have closed, the school is under threat, the fields and roads are flooded because the flood defence project has been postponed, the road is full of potholes because the council have stopped repairing them and there is a ghost estate in the village that is still sitting there untouched and your kids are in Australia, perhaps it is easy to ask "what recovery"?
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Well it does say that the population in rural areas has recovered while it is declining elsewhere.

View attachment 1186
And employment is increasing as well

View attachment 1187
Click to expand...


Using 2011 as a baseline for population growth is a somewhat misleading imo, a more interesting comparison would be vs 2001-2005 i.e. pre bust and large scale emigration. Similarly, I have no doubt employment has grown in the last two years, but that's vs. c. 15% national unemployment in the darkest days of 2008-2011, never mind in the hardest hit areas. Realistically, there isn't going to be the money to fund the type of services rural areas want any time soon. I think the idea of building up the regional cities as population and employment centres would make the country stronger economically and socially in the long term. As an example, rather than moving parts of the civil service piecemeal all over the place which didn't work under decentralisation, let's move the majority of it to say, Kildare town over a period of 20 years.
 
I live in the midland's and looking at the county that I live in the CSO and Dan O'Brien would not be able to sustain their argument too long if they were of a mind to do a more detailed analysis. It is a long time ago since I heard the phrase "there are lies damn lies and statistics". I know the county well enough not to have to engage some statisticians to tell me what is more than obvious.
I look at the county from a period called 2006/07 and to be honest it is quite depressing.
Property prices at about 40% of their peak value on average.
It would cost twice as much to actually build a house here as you would get for it.
Rents about 20% lower than peak.
2 hotels closed and not replaced.
At least 20% of pubs in the county closed and a lot of the others only opening part time.
A few schools closed and on a population basis in the rural areas there are at least 6 -8 that should be closed on a numbers basis.
Garda Stations closed probably justified on a population basis
Some churches closed and I will not go into that.
A huge amount of small shops closed leaving the main street of every town in the county semi derelict.
Rural PO's closed justifiable on a population basis.
There are a few extra pharmacies which essentially are quite busy because of a very high medical card population
Broadband in an acceptable speed is not something that we could be trusted with down here.
There are less worth while jobs here than ever there was in the last 10 years and I am not talking about building related jobs of which there are practically none.
I will not go into the health infrastructure here as it does not exist.
The county is declining and surely something like putting in a high speed broadband would be a priority.
I have put in justifiable on population grounds etc in a few areas but it does not mean than I agree with it.
The idea of talking about transfers of money from urban to rural makes for an unbalanced debate and can be interesting for those who love the sound of their own voice on the airwaves and who like preening in front of TV cameras.
The rural areas provide the food we eat and for Dublin in the future the water they will need. It provides for a place to escape to at times and is and will be part of the solution to some of our environmental problems
 
Am with you Dermot. Economists can put out all the stats they want but comparing percentages between now and 2012 is simply ignoring the fact that the rural areas were hit savagely when things went belly up. Garda stations closing, post offices closing, pubs closing ... once these close there is very little chance they will ever come back. The impact this has on the area is massive, both economically and psychologically. What has increased in the past 10 years in my area is social housing! So while some stats might show that things are better since 2012, it will take some time for things to feel remotely what they felt like even 15 years ago and some things will never be the same.
Maybe rural Ireland is changing to become a different place and maybe it might work out for the better but right now a lot of people living in rural areas are very concerned about what we have lost in the last 10 or so years.
 
The thing is that the state of affairs Dermot describes is applicable to all counties in the border, midlands and western region and large areas of the remainder of the country too.
 
I look at the GAA clubs which would be another barometer of a rural area. In my county I know a lot of people involved in the Gaa and I can see where schools have to include girls on the team to make up numbers where they had no problem some short years ago having an all boys team. Looking at my own school area they will not be able to field any team at all in 2 years time.
At senior level teams are having to bring over half the team from Dublin for training and matches. There are many teams that have 4 or 5 what would be regarded as first choice players who have emigrated as well.
During all the cut backs in the Gardai there were no cut backs in the numbers of officers or administrators. It was essentially front line where the cutbacks took place. Garda HQ where the decisions and allocations were made suffered little or nothing. There needs to be some outside tough guy brought in and root out all the inefficiency that exists there. It will never ever be done from within as everyone will be looking out for one another in a closed shop and all meeting one another everyday. The savings would be substantial and could be used elsewhere. Will not happen. Not the only organisation particularly at the top that needs an absolutely massive shake up.
 
Spend some time in our rural towns, don't take the bypass if there is one, drive in, take a few moments to view the shuttered shops, closed retail units, for sale or for rent signs literally everywhere in most any town you'd like to name in provincial areas including my home town in the West which is designated as severely disadvantaged, population maybe 8000 at a guess. I was told yesterday that Charity shops do not pay rates, I hadn't known that but it sure explains the proliferation of charity shops surfacing in previous prime enough retail areas in recent years in most of our country towns.
 
I live in rural Kerry and the county relies on tourism which is grand in some ways but makes eg housing a problem. Folk prefer to let their houses at high rates in summer and let them lie empty in winter. Many small businesses start up, last a year or three then close; in Killarney centre that are several closed just now and one has has four tenants in as many years. We do tend to keep Garda stations because of tourism. Charity shops are great frankly for us but probably less so for other retailers. In all we far far better than non tourist areas but at high costs in others. I was to Dingle ( snowstorm at the top ont eh Connor Pass..) yesterday and already congested. Will not be there again until autumn...It is an artificial and transient sense of " community" rather than the true one we need in rural Ireland. Two different worlds, season and off season.
 
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