Is development plan too Dublin-centric?

Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.

Those politicians wounded by the alleged Dublin-centric nature of the Government's national development plan will get further excuse for insult by today's lead story, which discloses some of the details of the new plan.

What will stick out for those west of the Shannon is the absence of the Western Rail Corridor from the proposed document. This has become a huge cause for politicians arguing for geographical balance, especially in the west of Ireland.

A review of the project was included in the Programme for Government by the Independent Alliance, but obviously the review did not bear good news and was dropped.

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There is a problem with the Western Rail Corridor that politicians in the west need to consider. It will never come close to washing its face, unless the argument over freight is fully borne out.

That’s the reality - especially with the opening of the brand new M17/M18 motorway that runs parallel to it. Balanced regional development amounts to more than this one rail corridor.

This morning’s report discloses a new acute hospital for Cork will be included along with major projects that have been long-promised, including the Dart extension, the Cork-Limerick motorway, a second runway for Dublin airport, a major schools-building programme and a new ICT system for the Garda.

There will also be a rural regeneration fund, but that already sounds a bit like a sop.

What was intriguing was that at last night’s Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting, it was agreed not to call it the capital plan, as that might give the impression it was focused on Dublin, the meeting heard. It is clear the Government is now acutely sensitive to the charge it is Dublin-biased.

The complementary National Planning Framework, the report says, is also being heavily revised to make it look more like a national document than a blueprint for Dublin for the next 20 years.

Indeed, the draft of the framework document has no more than a few cursory lines on how Ireland’s other cities will develop in the next 20 years.

Another interesting detail is that the Dart underground might not get the go-ahead on grounds of cost. Planners might rue that decision in future.

Border-line neurotic

There is a great quote from Pat Leahy's report on the Irish Government's concerns about the status of the Border post-Brexit.

A source ruefully notes the difficulties the talks present: “It’s hard to negotiate with the British government because the British government is effectively still negotiating with itself.”

Leahy’s report returns to a familiar theme from an Irish perspective: the Gordian knot where Britain has apparently conceded a soft Border while insisting it is leaving the customs union.

While the December agreement seemed to have ceded a soft Border, Irish negotiators are now concerned over the uncertainty of the status of the Border.

What happens next is that over the next month or so, an attempt will be made to arrive at a legal text that will essentially give effect to the agreement reached last December.

The process will be made all the more difficult by what is basically a full-blown internal civil war within the Tories between Brexiteers and Remainers.

* More excitable than any exchange between Marc MacSharry and the Healy-Raes. It's the Irish Times live political night in our offices at Tara Street on the evening of February 22nd, featuring a live podcast, live music, food, wine and mingling. Tickets are €10 (€5 to subscribers), with event details here.