The decentralisation of civil servants from Dublin will be a cosmetic exercise as long as the important decisions continue to be made in the capital, according to the director of the South-East Regional Authority.
Mr Tom Byrne, speaking at a conference on Monday organised by SIPTU, said the south-east continued to suffer as "so much investment was being drawn towards the Dublin region, which had grown enormously and was almost out of control".
There was no reason, he suggested, why the government itself could not be devolved or even for Dublin to remain the capital city.
The ESRI had predicted the greater Dublin area would have a population of 1.6 million by 2006. "We get the population overspill but it is very difficult to get foreign investment into the likes of the south-east region in the high-tech sector."
The headquarters of nearly every major business was based there and every arm of government was there. But there were plenty of examples, including South Africa, Switzerland and most of the states in the US, to show that the largest city did not have to be the capital.
"There's absolutely no reason why government could not be devolved out of Dublin. Why does the President have to live in Dublin? Why does the Dail have to meet in Dublin? For God's sake, why does the Seanad have to meet in Dublin?" he asked.
Decentralising government staff was just "cosmetic". "We just move civil servants who still receive decisions from Dublin. All of the major decisions will still be made in Dublin."
The conference, held in Enniscorthy, had the future development of Wexford as its theme. Much of the debate revolved around the failure of the different counties in the south east to work together for the advancement of the region.
Mr Byrne said there was very strong competition between the counties there and particularly the urban centres. "It seems that everyone from the west speaks with one voice about the needs of that region, but that doesn't happen in the south east."
Public representatives tended to be "more concerned with their own bailiwicks" than the region as a whole, and it also suffered from not having a seat at the Cabinet table. Economically, the south-east was not growing at the same rate as the State as a whole and was losing ground on the other regions.
A further inhibiting factor was that there was no university in the south east. "The lack of a university is believed to be the reason why there's very low R&D [research and development] spent in the region. We're failing to secure the kind of companies attracted to areas where there's both an international airport and third-level education, Limerick being the oft-quoted example."
Mr Mike Jennings, SIPTU's southeast regional secretary, criticised politicians for their reaction to the union's proposals for a university of the south east. Such an institution, it had suggested, should have its main campus in Waterford, with colleges in Wexford, Kilkenny, Carlow and south Tipperary.
"The reaction from certain sections in Waterford was: `how dare SIPTU attack our institute of technology'; while in Wexford the response from at least one politician was: `if there's going to be a university then it has to be in Wexford.' We were accused of attacking Wexford," he said.
Dr Peter Bacon, the Wexford-based economic consultant, told the conference there was no particular agency accountable for delivery of regional development. Those that were there were generally national agencies "trying to disseminate a national policy at a regional level, but there's nobody actually accountable for how that region performs in socio-economic terms".
"The agencies which are there are largely talk shops. They don't have the money to implement policies. They have a so-called co-ordinating role but if they fail to co-ordinate they don't get penalised and if they succeed they don't reap the rewards of success," he said.
