Assuming that local reaction to the £40 billion National Development Plan is a fair indication, we are going to be hearing a lot of bickering over roads in the new century. Looking forward to driving on the sunny side of the street was the Tipperary Star, which rejoiced over the £260 million bonanza for its roads. Also bright was the Midland Tribune as it looked forward to "an unprecedented era of prosperity and development in the history of Offaly". It had the added fillip of receiving assurances from the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Cowen, that the new N6 motorway would be constructed on the current Dublin/Galway road just a few miles north of Tullamore.
These assurances were setting off alarm bells in Longford, where - as far as the Longford Leader knew - the idea that the motorway might be nudged towards Tullamore was still just a "worrying rumour". The Leader argued for the Dublin-Galway motorway to be moved further north to bring it nearer Longford, Mullingar and Athlone.
Urging readers to campaign for its fair share of tarmac, the Kilkenny People complained that "for Kilkenny, for Clonmel and for Wexford, the plan is an unmitigated disaster". Kilkenny's exclusion from the proposed national primary road network would "automatically kill off a great deal of potential for growth".
"It seems that the entire focus for development is to be in Waterford . . . If Carlow-Kilkenny was a marginal constituency and if a Dail seat hung in the balance, then Kilkenny would never have been ignored . . . national and regional development should not be decided by political influence, but that is the reality," stated the People.
For the Sligo Champion, however, the £40.6 billion plan was "nothing short of a miracle", considering that "not so long ago, the country was on its last legs, surviving on EU handouts and teetering on the edge of national bankruptcy". The west was being promised a fairer share of resources which had long been denied. The £13.3 billion set aside for the Border, midlands and the west (the so-called BMW region), meant the per capita allocation was 23 per cent higher than the national average.
"The region's disadvantage is well and truly recognised and for the first time, a serious - though belated - effort seems finally to be under way to bridge the gap between the BMW region and the rest of the country," it stated.
In the midst of such optimism , the Mayo News feared the loss of community values. The Celtic Tiger ethos of "more wealth, less time" meant that charitable organisations like St Vincent de Paul were finding volunteers hard to find. "It is all very well to celebrate, and enjoy the fruits of a booming economy where material wealth is there for the taking, but it would be a poor trade-off for a climate in which concern and compassion and human kindness come to count for nothing," warned the News.
"Walking with Dinosaurs" has acquired a new dimension in Co Clare, where the "county council has been getting all sorts of publicity lately but for all the wrong reasons," according to the Clare Champion. First there was the "crackpot proposal" by a former chairman generally not to permit "non-indigenous" people to build houses in open countryside in areas under high development pressure and in vulnerable landscapes. Then last week, another former chairman, Mr Colm Wiley, targeted another perceived minority: women drivers. "The only time I am afraid to be on the road is between 11.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m. when you have two women in a car talking about what they did yesterday and are going to do tomorrow," he said.