ACHILL in Co Mayo, Ireland's largest island, is in danger of being damaged by a tax incentive scheme which was supposedly designed to help its economy and halt outward migration to the mainland. And the people of Achill feel almost powerless to do anything about it.
The island's unique, almost unspoilt landscape is being altered by that new breed of Bungalow Blitz - clusters of purpose built holiday homes. Two developments have already been completed, and there are many more in the pipeline, all aided by the generosity of Irish taxpayers. The tax incentive scheme for "traditional seaside resorts", inaugurated in 1995 by Enda Kenny, Fine Gael TD for Mayo and outgoing Minister for Tourism, has resulted in more concrete being poured into Achill over the past two years than at any time in its recent history.
Mr Kenny sees this as a badge of honour, a real measure of how much he has done for the place. But just as counting cranes on the skyline became a crude barometer of the "success" of urban renewal, the concrete pouring into Achill may be doing more harm than good. The development of holiday homes on the island has also been facilitated by the installation a few years ago of a quite sophisticated sewage treatment plant; it was a present to Achill from Padraig Flynn, who approved the project when he was Minister for the Environment.
Keel, on the south side of the island, has become the hot property zone. One of its completed schemes is a cluster of 22 holiday homes built in a strip on rising ground, with triangular windows on their gable fronts; they are known locally, not without reason, as "The Toblerones".
Maria Robinson, whose firm developed and now manages the scheme, has turned the nickname to her advantage by putting free bars of Toblerone in each of the houses, which are mainly rented by families in the summertime. "The kids are really delighted by this," she says. "Our scheme is not a blot on the landscape because it doesn't stand out from a distance. It was designed by Tom Carr, an architect based in Castlebar, who is known for his ingenuity. Also, these developments all give employment, bringing Achill people home from abroad."
A more traditional scheme nearby, of 15 "luxury three bedroom holiday homes", is partially completed. They are selling for around £80,000 apiece - mainly to investors from outside the island who then rent them out for around £400 a week during the holiday season. Further west, the picturesque village of Dooagh is also coming under pressure. A proposed scheme of 14 holiday homes behind the Atlantic Hotel is currently under appeal to An Bord Pleanala while locals are also objecting to 27 more being built along the same narrow, hilly road.
On the slopes of Slievemore, within sight of a deserted Famine village, there's a large billboard advertising another development of 15 holiday homes, to be laid out like a suburban housing estate. And there are rumours of more such schemes at the "preplanning stage. Near Dugort, colonised by a Protestant mission settlement in the mid 19th century, yet another 15 holiday homes are being proposed for the brow of a hill. One wonders what the late John Healy, whose stone cottage nestles amid fuschia and rhodendrons, would have made of it.
"There's no knowing where it's going to end," says John McHugh, arts officer of Achill Tourism. "The perception locally is that there's no plan to it. In theory, 100 schemes could be applied for and they would all be approved by Mayo County Council. People feel quite helpless." At the end of May, however, 40 local residents attended a public meeting in Dooagh to discuss the emerging crisis. They decided to set up a committee to monitor future developments and also engaged a planning consultant from Westport to object to the latest scheme.
"Achill people are naturally quiet and polite, so they've been slow to express their feelings," Mr McHugh explains. "What concerns them most of all is that they seem to have no say in the development of Dooagh or anywhere else on the island, so they feel very frustrated. It's not just a visual problem, it's more serious than that. There is a widespread perception that outsiders can come in here and get planning permission for holiday homes on prime sites when lots of local people have had difficulty getting approval to build houses for themselves.
"Another problem is that because most of the holiday homes are owned by outside investors, they don't bring money into the area - they take it out. They've also created a property boom on the island which has made it more difficult for young people to compete for sites to build houses. What's more, the availability of these purpose built holiday homes is hitting local people who might have some old house which they do tip to let out to tourists. They can't compete with the standards of accommodation, and they don't get any help or tax relief."
The holiday home schemes are also threatening to destroy the architectural integrity of villages such as Dooagh. This would clearly undermine the long term sustainability of tourism in Achill because the one thing most tourists want is to see it retain its "unspoilt" quality. "Tourists on the island are well aware of this," says Mr McHugh. "In a recent survey, it was one of the things that came out very strongly in response to an indirect question about how Achill could become a better tourism resort. Something like 70 per cent said: `Don't develop'."
Yet it wasn't as if the authorities were not urged to get it right, at the very outset of the seaside resort tax incentives scheme. Back in 1995, Achill Tourism made a submission to Mayo County Council proposing a baseline study of the three villages - Dooagh, Dugort and Dooega. Couched in quite positive terms, it suggested that the council should commission one of the schools of architecture to carry out this study with a view to drawing up development guidelines for each village which would both acknowledge and build on its character.
But nothing happened. The council said it didn't have £40,000 to fund such a study "just half the price of a single holiday home", as John McHugh puts it - and a similar plea to the Minister for Tourism also fell on deaf ears. Thus, development has proceeded in a policy void. Like other planning authorities, Mayo Co Council is accused of "bending the rules" to facilitate development in the designated resort areas of Achill and Westport. But the planners would have to bear in mind that it is Government policy to secure their "improvement".
ACHILL could certainly be improved by the development of more all weather facilities such as an indoor swimming pool or Tralee style "waterworld" facility. It is also crying out for such basic facilities as a launderette, not to mention a few good restaurants.
Achill Tourism acknowledges that there is a need to improve the island's accommodation base, but maintains that this would be better done by upgrading its seven hotels (all onestar) and numerous B&Bs. However, they have shown no inclination to avail of the scheme. One of the reasons is that the business is too seasonal for small, family owned establishments to contemplate serious investments; Achill's peak tourist season is notoriously short, extending from midJuly to the third week in August, so it just wouldn't pay to embark on major schemes.
What makes the holiday homes viable is that investors can write off 100 per cent of the capital cost against tax. "The developer makes 10 years' tourism money in one go, simply by selling them off," says Mr McHugh. "Hotels, on the other hand, require commitment down the line." If developers had to rent out holiday homes to qualify for the tax incentive, rather than selling them off to investors, at least they would have to bear the burden of managing the asset. But since the scheme is almost tailor made for a "quick killing", that burden is passed on.
The development of holiday home clusters will undoubtedly bring more visitors to Achill and extend its "season", to the obvious benefit of local publicans, restauranteurs and shopkeepers. But the revenue from this form of accommodation is leaving the island, Mr McHugh complains. He concedes that some of the developers are local businessmen or people with connections in Achill. But Kingsworth Ltd, a Dublin registered company which is behind the largest single scheme (of 27 houses) remains a mystery.
The designation of Achill as a "traditional seaside resort" is not confined to the island; it also includes the Currane Penninsula stretching from Mulranny to Achill Sound - mainly to encourage the reopening of Mulranny's Great Southern Hotel, which has been closed for years.
But this area has also become a focus for the holiday home schemes. For example, Corran Cottages Ltd - owned by John Clarke, husband of the RTE broadcaster Marian Finucane - is seeking planning permission from Mayo County Council for an 18 house cluster in Currane village.
Mr Clarke, who knows the area well, said the houses in his scheme were being designed to be accessible to disabled people. They would be "very sensitively placed" in the landscape and the effluent from a biocycle treatment plant on the site would be pumped uphill to safeguard nearby oyster beds.
The chances are that some of the villages in and around Achill may end up like Schull in West Cork, which is now ringed by at least four purpose built estates of holiday homes - all of them built without the aid of any tax incentives and profitably let during the summer season. John McHugh, whose mother ran a B&B, is concerned about the long term consequences for Achill of local people living in villages surrounded for most of the year by empty houses. "We're so busy being `modern' that we don't seem to value what we have," he says.
