National Development Scam - Why Cork Will Never Get Its Fair Share Under Dublin Rule

5th Feb 2018

You might have heard about the Dublin government’s National Development Plan (NDP) this week. They made a bit of a song and dance about it (anything to get journalists to stop asking them their position on abortion) trumpeting phrases like “regional balance” in the hope of gaining a bit of credit from non-Dublin voters. 

The NDP is a red herring published by the Dubs every few years to keep the rest of the country quiet. It produces a few fancy graphs, tells the culchies they’re going to get a train station and lovely schools and then none of it gets implemented because the Taoiseach is a Dub or a langer. Or, in most cases, both. 

 

As a ferociously loyal Corkonian concerned about the future of his or her county you may have been thinking of sitting down this weekend with a glass of tanora, a bag of tripe and drisheen flavoured crisps and The Franks blaring on Spotify to leaf through the latest publication called ‘Prospects for Irish Regions and Counties’ to absorb its rose tinted contents.

After all the NDP’s feel-good Youtube video (the English version which is currently on just over 2500 views and the Irish version on 350 views) is part-narrated by Micheal Ó Muircheartaigh whose voice is used to generate a feeling of orgasmic national harmony. There’s slow-motion footage of crowds in Irish soccer jerseys cheering, beautiful ballerinas dancing gracefully around a plush theatre stage and a beaming young kid being swung round by the arms of a parent.

There are no shivering bodies sleeping in tents in doorways on Patrick Street or pictures of elderly Corkonians on trolleys here.

You might be initially swayed by the gorgeous drone footage of Shandon in the opening shot or the images of Cork’s Olympic rowers Paul and Gary O’Donovan but Corkonians will know instinctively to never trust the words of a Kerryman - especially when they are paid for by a Dub.

You know this crowd are trying to sell us something dodgy here and just like a track suited ticket tout outside Croke Park it’s buyer beware - we know they’re trying to screw us, we just have to figure out how and where.

If you do decide to go ahead and read the National Development Plan (having been given the all clear by your GP after having your blood pressure checked) you’ll have barely flicked passed the back slapping section on the report’s authors, the ERSI, before you will be struck by one of the most dominant phrases that litters this report: Second Tier Cities.

Yes, that’s what Cork and the other two up the west coast are now collectively referred to. We’re being lumped in with the ‘slow class’ again.

It is at this point dear Rebel that you may calmly put the document down, stare quietly into space for a moment, smile knowingly and take a slow swig from your glass of red gold. You may now close the report. You don’t need to read on. 

This insulting phrase appears twenty three times in the whole thing along with an impressive collection of other corporate mumbo jumbo like “agglomeration” and “real gross value added”.

We’ll save you the hassle but every page of the report is screaming what we’ve been saying on these pages for years: Dublin is a dump and rammed full so share economic investment with other parts of the country (you langers) or Ireland is going down the swanny. 

For example, did you know that Corkonians pay €100 million in road tax and get just €40 million back for its roads? This at a time when ambulances carrying patients with back injuries in west Cork have to take them out on a stretcher and walk them over roads that are so potholed that they would cause more damage to the patient if they drove over them with them inside.

This document is full of real truths with overwhelming evidence that Dublin sucks the life out of Cork and the rest of Ireland.

The report will be held high by heavily whipped Cork TDs waving it to their constituents. Their press releases will trumpet things like “LUAS for Cork” yet again and there’ll be some rubbish fighting talk about rolling up “our” sleeves and getting the event centre off the ground. Quietly the report will be discarded and normal service will be resumed because the political reality in Ireland is that the capital monster must be fed until it eats everyone else including itself.

You see what really terrifies Dáil TDs are sentences hidden away deep in the NDP that refer to the real issue that worries Dublin politicians – it calls for “fiscal decentralisation and the strengthening of local and regional political autonomy” – in other words, taking away TDs power and giving it to local councillors.

And that’s why the Dubs are laughing into their coddle tonight.

As that glass of tanora stares back at you, you should only be thinking one thing – this charade has gone on for way too long and the only way for Cork to reach its potential is to go it alone.






Yes, that’s what Cork and the other two up the west coast are now collectively referred to. We’re being lumped in with the ‘slow class’ again.

It is at this point dear Rebel that you may calmly put the document down, stare quietly into space for a moment, smile knowingly and take a slow swig from your glass of red gold. You may now close the report. You don’t need to read on. 

This insulting phrase appears twenty three times in the whole thing along with an impressive collection of other corporate mumbo jumbo like “agglomeration” and “real gross value added”.

We’ll save you the hassle but every page of the report is screaming what we’ve been saying on these pages for years: Dublin is a dump and rammed full so share economic investment with other parts of the country (you langers) or Ireland is going down the swanny. 

For example, did you know that Corkonians pay €100 million in road tax and get just €40 million back for its roads? This at a time when ambulances carrying patients with back injuries in west Cork have to take them out on a stretcher and walk them over roads that are so potholed that they would cause more damage to the patient if they drove over them with them inside.

This document is full of real truths with overwhelming evidence that Dublin sucks the life out of Cork and the rest of Ireland.

The report will be held high by heavily whipped Cork TDs waving it to their constituents. Their press releases will trumpet things like “LUAS for Cork” yet again and there’ll be some rubbish fighting talk about rolling up “our” sleeves and getting the event centre off the ground. Quietly the report will be discarded and normal service will be resumed because the political reality in Ireland is that the capital monster must be fed until it eats everyone else including itself.

You see what really terrifies Dáil TDs are sentences hidden away deep in the NDP that refer to the real issue that worries Dublin politicians – it calls for “fiscal decentralisation and the strengthening of local and regional political autonomy” – in other words, taking away TDs power and giving it to local councillors.

And that’s why the Dubs are laughing into their coddle tonight.

As that glass of tanora stares back at you, you should only be thinking one thing – this charade has gone on for way too long and the only way for Cork to reach its potential is to go it alone.