merrion street

Ms. Jan O’Sullivan, T.D.,

Minister for Housing and Planning

at the Department of the Environment,

Community and Local Government

2 May 2013

Ladies and Gentlemen

As Minister for Housing and Planning, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you here today to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to launch the 2013 Gateway and Hub Town Development Index.

This report was produced under the expert stewardship of the Southern and Eastern Regional Assembly and the Border Midlands and Western Regional Assembly in conjunction with all relevant local authorities, other interest groups and my Department.

As Minister, I wish to record my appreciation to the Cathaoirligh of the Regional Assemblies, Cllr Dermot Lacey, Southern and Eastern Regional Assembly and Cllr Frank Dolan, Border, Midland and Western Regional Assembly together with the Assemblies Directors Stephen Blair and Gerry Finn and their staff for initiating this important report.

Later on this morning, others will be providing you with a more detailed presentation on the findings of the report

For my part, it is important to acknowledge that building on the previous Gateway Development Index compiled in 2009, this latest report provides a fresh insight into the performance of Irelands key national and regional urban centres and their catchments  in a way that will be of great importance to the Government, public bodies, including local authorities as well as local communities in order to measure the progress of many of the main cities and towns of Ireland as regards their economic and social development as well as their spatial development and environmental quality.

I want to reiterate today that the Regions matter greatly from a Government policy perspective in that it is only through strong regions that we will build a strong economy, a strong society and a quality environment.

Government remains strongly committed to implementing a strong regional dimension to policies and programmes as evidenced by the decision to retain a regional tier to public administration but to make it more effective and in the context of approaching negotiations with the EU Commission in relation to structural funding post 2014.

However, plans for planning sake are not enough, we need to know how we are meeting our objectives.

More than that, we need to know whether our efforts are making any difference in the practical outcomes for our citizens.

I recall the saying that what can’t be measured isn’t worth doing.

Measurement of performance is very important in informing policy makers and legislators like you or me whether we are making progress in areas such as regional development and the success of certain strategic locations.

That is why I have been determined to improve the effectiveness of our monitoring systems, demonstrating how actions match objectives.

For example, under my watch, the Department’s

e-planning system has been put in place to seamlessly gather local authority and other public sector data and mapping to show to the wider public and all interested bodies how physical planning policies align nationally, regionally and locally. Myplan is showing how we are making progress in ensuring that local planning is avoiding floodplains, that it is providing sites for schools, that we are tackling the issue of unfinished housing.

With over 100,000 users so far, it is proving very popular and so it should be, providing an effective showcase of where our planning process is taking us.

The forthcoming Regional Planning Guidelines Indicators Project is part of a wider drive by my Department, in conjunction with the Regional Authorities, to greatly improve the monitoring of the performance of the regions as a whole, in economic, social and environmental terms. This indicators project will also incorporate the latest university research in Ireland and at EU level in this field.

As many of you will be aware, my colleague in this Department Minister Phil Hogan T.D. has published a wide ranging reform programme for the local government sector, including its regional dimension, in the document “Putting People First”.

This plan has been approved by the Government and is at an advanced stage of implementation with the heads of legislation to give effect to the changes required likely to emerge during the summer.

Chapter 3 of Putting People First sets out that the current array of 10 regional bodies will be rationalised into three new Regional Assemblies and that each of the three proposed Regional Assemblies will develop a Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy to co-ordinate the economic and spatial development of their areas and enable local government to play a stronger role in economic development in general.

The strategies will be adopted as Government policy for economic development of the regions and should be incorporated into statutory plans and mission statements of local authorities and other relevant agencies.

I also wish to make clear that to enable the regional strategies to take account of a fresh national policy context in relation to national and regional spatial development, together with Minister Hogan, I will draw up proposals for the development of a successor strategy to the National Spatial Strategy.

The next NSS would therefore be a new strategy, not just a revision of the previous strategy and would take account of the proposals for a stronger role by local government, through its regional assemblies, in preparing and co-ordinating regional development policy.

The next NSS will therefore be likely to be a higher level framework than the current strategy and would be closely aligned with, or incorporate, wider national policies on economic, social and environmental policy generally as well as specifically on economic recovery and investment.

In the meantime, the 2002 NSS continues to set the Strategic National Planning Framework until a successor is in place.

I believe that we must grasp the opportunity we now have to look beyond the theoretical and political framework that shaped the previous NSS. 

Spatial planning at city, regional and national level has evolved in the decade since the previous NSS was conceived.  I am intent to see that experience and expertise, including the results of the Gateway Development Index informs our approach to a new NSS. 

Together with Minister Hogan and again subject to Government approval, I anticipate that the next NSS would be prepared during the course of 2014 and early 2015, to be in place as a clear context for the preparation of the proposed regional strategies by the regional assemblies in 2015 and into 2016, when the current regional planning guidelines cease to have statutory effect.

I wanted to set out this context to demonstrate why I believe that initiatives like the Gateway Development Index are very important information gathering and analysis exercises.

With the Index, the Regional Assemblies have performed a valuable service in assembling a key piece of information for the process of preparing new national and regional strategies as I have already described.

The Index accurately describes the effectiveness of progress in implementing the National Spatial Strategy, measuring how the Gateways are performing against their NSS objectives and forms an important policy tool to evaluate the impact of investment in these Gateways under the NDP and the Regional Operational Programmes, thus assisting us in future work.

It is fair to say that the results were essentially positive across the Gateways although it also highlights an ongoing requirement for better co-ordination of central department and agency programmes with the work of local authorities in their various functions.

The Index also confirms that the 9 Gateway cities and towns and the 9 Hub towns are a very diverse lot and that far from a “one size fits all” approach, tailored strategies are required that variously play to their individual strengths, but also address their weaknesses.

I will be encouraging the continuance of capturing of this information and enhancement of this work into the future. 

I also recognise that the approach to this study has been truly innovative in that it was driven by the regions, working closely with my Department and other Department and Agencies whom are custodians for critical data and information.

I would encourage the wider adoption of such an approach, particularly where it involves regional development which must be driven from both the bottom-up as well as the top-down working in unison together guided and informed within the overall framework of the NSS.

I also intend to study the conclusions of the Index with regard to my intention to bring forward a Policy Statement on Planning.

This policy statement will outline clearly and concisely what we want planning to do, what are the values that we want to inculcate in our planning system, and what are the principles that will underpin policy development in the area.

Ireland’s regions and their many strengths matter in relation to how Ireland as a whole will meet the many challenges we face in economic, social and environmental terms.

Government is determined that through a more focused and integrated approach at regional level, structures will be put in place to ensure that the regions play their full part in our wider national project or reconstruction and recovery.

The Gateway Development Index being launched here today is an important step in assembling the information needed in these endeavours and I commend all involved for their vision and commitment to getting this stage of the job done.