Hard times in the Mid-West

With a Dáil debate on the Mid-West Task Force scheduled for this Thursday, the chairman of the group, Denis Brosnan has painted a very bleak picture of a region in crisis. Dermot Walsh reports

The main pillars of the Mid-West region crumbling and all efforts to remedy the situation not working; that was the unthinkable scenario placed before Oireachtas members last week. Worse still was where the grim news was coming from.
The pillars that made the region the envy of the rest of the country – overseas investment, tourism, Shannon Airport and job generation – are all under severe strain with nothing in sight to suggest that the meltdown can be halted, the attendance at a briefing and update on the work of the task force, held in Limerick’s Strand Hotel last Friday, heard.
“It’s not working,” was the verdict from Denis Brosnan, the man appointed by the Government to bail the region out of its deepening crisis. Oireachtas members in attendance heard the Mid-West Task Force chairman state in unequivocal terms that the group is not getting anywhere or going anywhere. What’s more, the State agencies working within the task force also know that the structures that they operate in are not working and are unlikely to work in the future. Frustration and near dejection has set in so much that the task force even thought about giving up on their mission before Christmas, the chairman confessed. The task force was established last year in response to major job losses at Dell in Limerick and other companies in the region.
There was little or no positive response to the 20 priority pointers set out in their interim report of last July. “For the task force and for me, it would have been a waste of time to move to the second stage. Why start the second stage, if nobody has any interest in the first stage?” the chairman asserted.
“It’s bad news, bad news and more bad news,” was the chilling message from Mr Brosnan in a no punches pulled and dispassionate litany of what’s gone wrong in the region and how no steps are being taken to set matters right.
“An awful year for tourism and tourists,” was the verdict on 2009. Although yet to be officially confirmed, last year was also a terrible year for Shannon Airport. The story of a downward slide for some years was the same in employment and job creation and 2010 offers no let-up on any front.
Laying it on the line, Mr Brosnan warned, “Doing nothing is not an option”. Unless there is drastic and urgent action and the way is cleared by Government for action to be taken, he said, “We will have a very depressed place in which to live and work”. Otherwise, the prospects for the Mid-West came down to “a generation of unemployment or encouraging those coming into the workforce to emigrate”.
The stark realities and gloomy future outlook as it now stands were spelled out to the Oireachtas members to prime them for a Dáil debate on the Mid-West Task Force this Thursday.
Chief executive of the task force and Shannon Development, Dr Vincent Cunnane explained, “There has not been enough movement. We want to ratchet up the pressure and the momentum.”
He pointed out that what they termed “the cornerstone” recommendations from the task force were spread over five or six different Government departments. Consequently, the scope for getting action was restricted by the delaying or other tactics adopted by the departments. It has turned out to be “a recipe for nothing getting anything done”, Mr Brosnan commented.
With indications coming from Government that the frustrations and unease of the task force are being heard or have been aired already in the uppermost echelons, there are firm grounds for believing some change is on the way. With the need for co-ordination and freeing up of obstructions within the apparatus of Government, “it would be nice for a senior civil to be assigned to take it on”, the chairman accepted.
Change on the ground is not only on the minds of the task force chairman and chief executive. The view that the State bodies involved in enterprise and job promotion are not delivering is shared inside the agencies themselves.
“There are excellent people within those agencies. They are helping the task force but they know the structure is not working. The Government set up a structure that is not working,” Mr Brosnan said.
The task force is marshalling the support of the Oireachtas members for swift direct action in shoring up tourism and Shannon Airport.
It is also is calling for the fullest weight in support and lobbying power to get the €53 million five-year Tourism and Economic Development Plan back on the stocks. Pressure is also being applied to switch a €2m West of Ireland promotion fund in the US market specifically to Shannon Airport, as well as funding for a long-term tourism plan for the region. The job creation and spin-off advantages of the proposed Lynx cargo hub at Shannon are also being heavily pushed in pressing for €7m in State investment in support of the “substantial investment” by Lynx.
Heading to the Dáil this week, Oireachtas members had the words of Denis Brosnan ringing in their ears. “Nothing is changing. It has only got worse. Somebody must listen and do something about it.”

Back to one agency to run the region?

A return to a single agency to mastermind and co-ordinate a recovery in Mid-West enterprise and jobs promotion may be on the cards arising from a Dáil debate this Thursday.
Making no secret that he favours a return to the set-up that established the region around Shannon as a stronghold of overseas industry and, later, in prompting widespread small industry growth, is the chairman of the Mid-West Task Force.
In a hard-hitting briefing session last Friday, Denis Brosnan told Oireachtas members that the three-cornered set-up of the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and Shannon Development “is not delivering”. The businessman, who turned Kerry Co-Op into a global operation, added, “It is obvious to all of us that the system is not working. It has not worked in the good times and has not a chance of working in the bad times.”
“What is in place today is not working,” Mr Brosnan stated, while flanked by the Shannon Development chief executive, Dr Vincent Cunnane, who is also chief executive of the task force.
Mr Brosnan added that the view that the current set-up is not working is shared within the State agencies themselves.
With the Mid-West lagging behind other regions in overseas investment for some years, the decline in employment and numbers out of work at higher levels in the region than the national average and the IDA delivering only 1,000 jobs in the three years to the end of 2008, “we just cannot continue with more of the same”, Mr Brosnan said.
Clearly signalling his preferred option, the task force chairman said, “We know that in the old days, the system worked”.
Commenting that a change in the structure is something to be thought through, he added, “we just cannot continue with more of the same”.
“Is there a new way forward? Do we go back to the old way because it worked?” Mr Brosnan asked.
With all-party support from the region lined up for Thursday’s Dáil debate, movement is also expected from the Government. In particular, the Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan, who appointed the task force, is expected to take steps to help free the logjam and cut through the inaction in departments that brought the group to the verge of giving up the job before Christmas.
There are now expectations that a senior civil servant will be appointed to clear the way through Government obstructions or obstacles and that a return to one agency calling the shots in an integrated approach to enterprise development and job creation in the Mid-West will be high on the Tánaiste’s agenda.