THE NEW CITY FOR THE WEST.

PAPER PRESENTED BY WILLIAM A. THOMAS ON HIS PROPOSALS FOR A NEW CITY FOR THE WEST AND THE POTENTIAL OF THIS NEW CITY.

Introduction:

Good afternoon,

My paper today, called "New City for the West, a millennium vision of what Ireland can offer for the future."

This paper augments the proposals already put to Government and which are posted on our website, www.newcityforthewest.com.

If people do not have those proposals, copies will be made available after this talk.

This talk will be posted on the website.

The proposals to Government were 6 fold:

1. To address the serious economic imbalance between East and the West of Ireland, and all its ramifications, both for the present and the future.

2. To address the problems of population surge with a population expected to reach 6 million within 20 years.

3. To offer a project of both national and international interest, that would allow Ireland to focus on its future in an expansive way, rather than looking to the past – and being afraid to let go of the past.

4. To identify the problem of an emerging underclass of people who have lost the innocence and joy of youth, and playfulness, and who grow up angry at not having the amenities and facilities and indeed responsible parenthood.

5. The problems of huge housing estates and identifying that these are not the solutions to the future in my view – especially those without amenities. There are too many no-go areas in Ireland, and they are on the increase. We need to design-out crime in all future developments, and design-in the proper facilities and space, to give people a chance to live stress free lives and provide them with sustainable employment.

6. And identifying that the so-called Celtic tiger was too regional, and not national – it effected the East mostly, and not the west.

Ireland today:

Ireland of the 21^st century still has 5 medieval cities: Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford. All of these cities are built on water, and can only expand inward, which they already have, and all being of medieval construction cannot expand their downtown areas without demolition. The same can be said also for the towns around the country.

Ireland’s population however is expanding. The last population census showed a population of some 3.8 million people in 1996. The population census to be taken next year is predicted to show a population of 4.5 million people and growth at some 15.5% per annum.

In addition to these figures, Ireland is attracting people from its ex-pat community overseas, with some 300,000 jobs to be filled within 5 years. You can expect for every job offered at least 4 will return home, a man, his wife, and an average of two children. So in real terms 300,000 jobs means an additional 1.2 million people into Ireland.

There are others coming include the brain drain employees, the refugees of whom 25% are deemed genuine and will be allowed to stay, and others. The net effect will be a population of some 6 million people in Ireland within 20 years. This figure concurs with other similar figures of economists and institutes (such as Marian Finnegan of Sherry Fitgerald and the Royal Institute of Engineers in Ireland, the Central Statistics Office and others).

There are calls for some 400,00 extra homes by the year 2011 (Sherry Fitzgerald).

There is no doubt that the population is on an upward surge to record levels, and the demand for homes totally out ways the supply. Irish industry today has peaked with the building of 50,000 homes a year. The demand is now approximately 75,000 and rising. The shortfall in the availability of homes is increasing, hence house prices, and rental prices are unreasonably and unjustly high, with rental for small apartments in Galway now fetching £1,000.00 per month, and smaller houses in housing estates now demanding £850.00 per month.

Ireland has always had a policy of finding the quickest and cheapest solutions to large and complex problems, without looking to the future and seeing the risks. We have tended to grant licenses to build huge housing estates to house people, without looking at the impact of such developer led construction.

We have had Tallaght, home to 125,000 people without a town center for 20 years, we have had Clondalkin, Ballymun, and many other housing estates around the country all built on the same principle: build as many as you can, as cheap as you can. There was no forward planning to consider like amenities, facilities, infrastructure and in many cases employment.

The net results of the lack of proper planning, and foresight has seen "FUNDAMENTAL" unhappiness in our young who have sought all the escapisms the modern world offers including very serious drug abuse, drink which is a major plague on many teens, unprovoked violence on the streets of our cities, with some downtown areas called "no go"areas.

So what does the future offer to us? Present indicators from the Department of the Environment’s National Spatial Unit show that this trend of building housing estates is to continue, and that in addition to regional development which will take place, development in the East will swamp all other development in the country in order to feed the huge labour market in Dublin. It must not only redevelop its North inner city, and provide massive multi-billion pound investment in infrastructure and that it also must develop gateway communities, or dormer towns within an hour commuting from Dublin, as outlined in the National Spatial Strategy.

Again the difficulties in all of this development is that the needs of our population are not being met. There is more to life than just commuting to and fro in dense traffic, and returning home to a housing estate without amenities or facilities.

The difficulties are facing us all on a daily basis: rising crime - with murder an everyday occurrence – traffic grid-locking in our cities, people incurring huge debts, which is creating a new type of economic enslavement, etc, but more importantly the unseen effects on people’s lives are taking shape, namely the quality of their lives is diminishing rapidly, levels of contentment and tolerance are also on the way down, while rage and anger is on the increase.

Spatial planning is the way forward, albeit 25 years too late, but it does offer a good future.

The Government has asked for consultants to put forward suggestions on where we think Ireland should be going, and how we can achieve a new future. Taking advantage of these openings I offered the idea of a New City for the West, which is not only of national interest but also more importantly of regional interest.

The New City of the West would offer a counter-balance to the huge development taking place in the East, and Dublin in particular where, to date, some of the investments announced this year include: -The Port Tunnel, for which the initial cost last year was £179 million. Today, the very same project will cost £390 million. -The Abbottsford Stadium: initial cost was £300 million, now it will cost £1 billion.

-The Underground Metro System was estimated at £5.5 billion over 16 years; now it is estimated to cost £15 billion. I believe the real figure with overruns and 4 to 5 Governments will cost in excess of £25 billion.

-The Eastern Corridor is expected to cost £11 billion, but I do not have a revised figure for that yet.

-The much needed Ballymun re-development project: £1.5 billion.

-North inner city: £600 million.

-£50 million for a new Museum of Natural Science and Technology.

- Dublin has also uneven inward investment: for example in an already grid-locked city we have:
Intel investing an additional £2 billion and asking for an additional 1,000 workers
Biotech: £500 million
Cisco: a potential £2 billion and 2,500 workers, and so on.

There are many other projects such as the Luas project, the Sandy Mount by-pass project, the high speed rail infrastruture from the commuter belt to Dublin, the high speed rail link from Dublin Airport to Dublin city center, Eircom Park, Croke Park, etc, etc…

What has happened to the West? How much has been invested here?? There is definitely a lop sided investment taking place, but that seems always to have been the case!… Nevertheless, it was always unacceptable to the people of the West who have suffered through the loss of its young and its friends, who have migrated Eastward toward employment, or emigrated to far distant lands, a plight that still affects the West in a unique way.

There is no doubt that the rural West is in decline, and this needs to be addressed if the West is to have any real future in the Ireland of the 21^st century. In fact the West could very much hold the key to the future wealth of all of Ireland.

What I am proposing to you today is something that must be given very serious consideration, and support, support from all the people of Ireland, at home and overseas, and all the friends of Ireland everywhere. I am proposing the largest project ever undertaken in the History of the State. I am proposing a New City for Ireland to be placed in the West.

This will not only definitely redress the imbalance of population, or financial imbalance but will open the door to a new future, a new way of thinking, and the re-emergence of a healthy national pride which has been for so long depressed.

Ireland must take this step forward to the future, to a new beginning, but we must do this collectively.

The positive or negative future of this country could be decided in the acceptance of this idea for a whole new purpose built city, Ireland’s first, a potential Silicon Valley where we will be able to attract the brain drain professionals to spearhead our I.T. intelligence, computer industries, and related hard wear, and soft, and research and development, and financial services and other high tech companies.

We can take the world’s lead by offering all the latest from technology to the latest in fiber-optic facilities and high speed telecommunications.

Or we can dismiss it and do nothing, but watch the country lose the I.T. edge to the UK whose policy is to become the new e-commerce capital of the world. And if they are successful we will no longer have any competitive edge, neither in the brain power, nor in fiscal policy, which is set to be replicated by the UK who has learned in diverse ways from the Irish experience.


The New City:

The New City will be built where there is an existing infrastructure, namely Knock International Airport, which is part open at the present, namely the Government of the day passed special legislation preventing them from taking transatlantic traffic. That must be reversed as soon as possible.

We already have two national roads that straddle East and West of the proposed New City, namely the N17, to the West, and the N5, to the East. Both need to be upgraded badly.

The National Development Plan has earmarked £20 billion for the upgrading of the national infrastructure - all over the country. The West must not be forgotten.

The New City would have an initial population of some 100,000 people, most of who would have been from the area already and who want to come home to work to augment those who already live in the area.

The critical mass of employment to achieve sustainability would potentially come from the following,

At least three government departments being re-located out of Dublin.

I am sure that every one is aware that there is a desire by the Government itself to move out of the capital city, because of the real danger of not only the city grinding to a halt, but the government itself.

At a recent meeting with Mr. Charlie Mc Creevy in Ballyhaunis where I discussed this move, we discussed the potential of moving the whole Government out of Dublin to this New City for the West, something that is not unprecedented; in fact not so long ago it happened in Brazil. A huge country of some 170 million people. The Government was located in Rio de Janeiro.

As the population increased, and the wealth circulated around one city it became apparent that the rest of the Country was being ignored, and that in the long term the potential demands for regional governments became such that had the government not moved from its lop-sided position then Brazil would have been in trouble.

The government moved, lock stock, and barrel from Rio to a new and purpose built City in the heart of Brazil. The first unforeseen effect of this bold but necessary move was national UNITY for the whole country, the second effect was an immediate EFFICIENCY in the way the Government was Run, and the third effect was a NATIONAL BALANCE in development in the entire country that gave all its citizens equal opportunities, equal wealth, equal access to education, to health care, etc.

Government began to work in the National interest rather than in solely regional. There are other new cities in the world that have their own success stories, and that we have mentioned in our preliminary report.

The three initial departments, for government re-location would include the Department of the Environment, the Department of Trade and Employment, and with it Science, Technology, and Commerce, and the Department of Education and Science.

These three would be a minimum in critical mass for sustainability in this sector.

We would be looking at a New National University, with at least three main faculties, Science, Math’s, Research and Development. We think that the potential of this New City if planned correctly, (and that is why we insist that it go out to International Tender) will become the New Silicon Valley of the World.

There are three requirements for success in this field:

1. Studies in Science and Maths and Research and Development,

2. Government fiscal policy, and

3. Entrepreneurship.

There is also a huge demand for specialist health care, with many Europeans traveling to the United States for specialist operations. In addition to our own requirements in Ireland, I think a good case can be made for a Pan-European Specialist Medical and Trauma Center.

In the context of the National Spatial Strategy we would be also considering the following as part of Ireland’s New City; A Spatial National Conference Center, A National Stadium for the West, a National Museum for the West, and among many other facilities, an industrial center to take immediate advantage of the huge quantities of gas just off our coast, namely for high technology pharmaceuticals and chemicals, and fertilizers for a world market. There will also be the opportunity for power generating stations using the gas to provide the electricity for the New City.

Addition critical mass can come from companies who would invest in a New Spatial attractive city with excellent amenities, and facilities, and excellent infrastructure including a high speed rail link to the Capital. Many companies have already been in contact with us, asking when this will proceed, and have expressed an interest in potentially the world’s most exciting project, in the world’s best loved country.

So I believe that industry will be attracted and that the Government is interested in the relocation offer, the gas is plentiful and close, and with all the infrastructure in place, you have your sustainability for your New City…

This will allow full employment in the West for the next 50 years, and halt the emigration and migration and all the evils that go with it, including depression, isolation and suicide which is up 700% since 1991. These evils affect those who go, and those who stay behind. But now are destined to be left behind forever, as we all take the step forward to the future.

One of the fastest growing industries in the world today is international tourism. The New City intends to take full advantage of that being an all year around attraction in itself.

We have seen the success of the world’s "theme" parks, like Disneyworld /Disneyland, Winsor, Luna and in Ireland Fota – and others. The New City proposes to be primarly an Irish city but its suburbia will reflect the international architecture of those countries who have been longstanding friends and home to millions of our emigrants, where today some 44 millions of Irish extraction live in the USA, some 7 million live in the UK, some 2 million live in Australia and New Zealand, and some 10 million around the world in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Africa, and throughout Europe.

One of the international suburbia will reflect the very best of American architecture, for its residential homes, and parks, amenities and facilities.

Another the very best of Switzerland, Holland… The Dutch Government have already offered to help, having built Alsmer recently from scratch.

We will extend the invitations out, to all the world, so that they too can share this vision and allow them to repay the many Irish who landed on their shores, with nothing, and turned around and in many cases built their countries for them, with hard work and dedication.

The effect of the international theme, to this New City will be a permanent influx of tourists to the New City, especially from countries where the best of their architectural heritage is displayed – and where they can see the biggest and best of Irish ingenuity.

The Irish are a very proud people, by nature. I have only once ever seen that pride manifest itself here when the Pope came here in 1979. The Irish were a natural, happy people - to the outside world euphoric - but to me, as they should be – setting the world on fire, which many unknown Irish heroes, who have left these shores have done. I want to see that pride re-emerge – I want people to throw off the shekels of depression, sadness, feeling of loss, because their loved ones have had to leave these shores.

People of Ireland must take this giant step forward to the future – to the threshold of hope – and begin to speak a new language that is positive, unifying, and good.

Let us then move on, and build this New City in the West; let us raise our heads high and walk in the footsteps of those great men who showed us the way forward, men like Monsignor Horan, who was able to take the ridicule and scornful abuse but still held his head high, as a proud Irish man.


Conclusions:

My conclusions therefore are:

1. Ireland needs a New City. The population surge alone will demand it. I feel that now is the time to do it. We have the wealth, we still have the international good will, the world is still in a boom, we can do it right. It can be a beautiful city, with an international theme which will be a tourist attraction in itself. Tourism is the fastest growing industry in the world today – we aim to take advantage of that.

2. We have the time now to offer this project out to international tender, to create the most modern, technologically advanced city in the world, using broadband/fiber optic and advanced in-house technologies. We can do it right!

   We have identified the right place, which already has an infrastructure in place: an International Airport, 4 rail links, 2 National Roads and an area where only 230 people live. The ground is correct for building, the time is right. I believe the will is there. I count on your support!

   If we don’t do it now, we will live to regret it – within 20 years it will be forced on us. I believe it could become another Tallagh, so big that there will be two mayors: a day mayor, and a nightmare.

   We no longer can afford to make the mistakes of the past, for any politically expedient reasons.

3. Eastern Europe will open up to the E.U. within 3 years. Last year I visited Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic – their infrastructure is fantastic: motorways everywhere, a rail network that we could only dream of and an available workforce which comes at 1/10 of the cost of wages here. We will not be able to compete unless we create the competitive edge, the new Silicon Valley.

4. Britain also has ambitions: it sees itself as the e-commerce capital of the world within 10 years. We all need to work together in the National interest, rather than working in opposition, to redress the long perpetrated economic imbalance between East and West, which is so great it will require a massive project, like a New City, to effectively balance the scales. A New City will provide full employment in the West for the next 50 years and beyond. It will allow its migrants and those who have emigrated to come home, to a land they so much love.

5. Ireland needs to repackage itself and re-sell itself – no longer as a tragic, romantic country, but as a beautiful and high-tech intelligent country. Dublin 6 months ago was the most desirable place to have an international call center, today it ranks 35^th!

I believe the New City is the future for this country. I believe the West will save the Nation. The City will be advanced, beautiful, environmentally friendly, crime free and the door, the key and the mechanism for Ireland in the 21^st century, as a world leader in high-tech, low energy, no waste.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you this New City for the West – the City of the Sacred Heart – I ask for your support, and together let’s make it happen.

The West Awake! The West Awake!