Suddenly Kilkenny is a 'hub', and Carlow is not. Kathy Sheridan reports on how the National Spatial Strategy has divided the country into the special and not-so-special
On the fine, bustling, grid-locked streets of Carlow this weekend, it boils down to a tale of two star-crossed towns, sharing one constituency - a simple, age-old tale of political favouritism.
One town, Kilkenny, has four Dáil deputies - including one junior Minister and one "mouthy" backbencher who got his "big committee job and God knows what else to keep him sweet", in the words of an incensed Carlow shopkeeper. While Carlow, the other town, has its sole Dáil representation in M.J. Nolan, a quiet-ish FF backbencher.
"And even if M.J. suddenly decided to set the world on fire, it's only fair to say that he was elected too late anyway to knock sense into anyone. This was too hot a potato to release before the election. It doesn't take an Einstein to work out that Kilkenny was always going to win out over Carlow," adds the shopkeeper, who chooses anonymity for "life-preservation" reasons.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern can repeat 10 times an hour that there are no losers under the National Spatial Strategy. But when 22 towns and cities are listed for special status in a small country, the inescapable signal for the rest is that they are not "special".
"Maybe we'll manage to be a bit more up-beat about it in a few weeks, but the feeling now is that we're the runts of the litter," says one sheepish public figure in Carlow.
On the streets of the town, lunchtime shoppers who have yet to differentiate between a hub and a radial corridor, have heard enough to sense that they have been kickboxed to the back of the queue. Worse, the town elevated at their expense is Kilkenny - lovely, medieval, media-luvvie, city-status, tourist-magnet Kilkenny, sitting pretty with four hot-shot deputies, only 25 miles down the road.
Ordinary Kilkenny folk are pleased their city is "in", but are not sure what riches - if any - should accompany the news. "What's a hub? I've a good-size back garden. Does this mean it's worth a few bob more?" asks a man, with enthusiasm. At official level, any triumphalism is being kept in check.
"We're quietly pleased," says Alison McGrath, chief executive officer of the town's Chamber of Commerce. "We're getting e-mails from people asking what does this really mean for us, how will it be implemented?" As for the plain man's definition of a hub, Alison takes her cue from soccer parlance: "Gateways are the premiership and hubs are the first division . . ." Which means that the rest are . . .?
Either way, for every newly-confident ambition articulated by Alison McGrath and Kilkenny Mayor Betty Manning, another aspiration seems to be tugged from under Carlow. So when happy Alison talks of hub status giving them "that extra edge" in the next round of Government decentralisation, her Carlow counterpart, Jacqui McNabb, can only point miserably to figures which show that Carlow currently has only 3 per cent of Government administration as against a national average of 6 per cent.
What are the chances of getting more? "I'd be very concerned in terms of Government priority, that it will be given to Kilkenny," she says. "I am bitterly disappointed. They say it will be a win/win situation, but it is crumbs. Just crumbs. All we are is a commuter town, all we will be is just a pure sleeping town. We were excluded from the BMW region. We haven't had inward investment since the Trek factory came six or seven years ago - and that's more assembly, not production. Braun is still our biggest employer but is planning to lay off 200 workers. And for all the talk about the progression of the famous IDA park, it's an illusion. What we have right now is 70 acres, a wall, some flattened ground and no building. Not a single building. Anyway, the IDA's remit is in terms of inward investment, it's not for indigenous growth. But we don't even have broadband. Our attractiveness obviously has lessened now."
The only way Carlow can foresee any improvement is in terms of the N9 upgrade. But the N9 failed to feature in the 23 roads that have been prioritised: "And the money isn't even there for them," she points out. But if hubs and gateways mean anything, surely pressure from Kilkenny (hub) and Waterford (gateway) should restore the N9 to priority status?
"Carlow has always been a proud county, it's not a place that would want to benefit by default," says Michael Kelly, chief executive officer of the county enterprise board.
"Carlow doesn't get an awful lot of attention," says Kelly, "and that could mean that it's doing OK." But of the town's three biggest employers, Braun is laying off workers, and the Irish Sugar Company's report this week showed the bulk of its profits now emanate from non-core, non-Irish activities.
While McNabb and Kelly stress the need to stop the whingeing and get moving, these are not empty whinges. Unemployment in Carlow is already above the national average at nearly 6 per cent. Now it finds itself trailing behind the BMW region, Waterford and, after this week, Kilkenny, for IDA largesse. Of the 1,000 graduates annually from the Institute of Technology in Carlow, 93 per cent get employment elsewhere.
"We would like to hold on to a lot of them, but how do we do that?" asks Kelly. An additional worry is that if Waterford achieves university status for its IT, can Carlow hope to compete with it for students?
In Carlow this week, the feeling of a people drained of life and optimism is real. The view is that, unlike Kilkenny - with its influx of prestigious banking businesses and VHI Healthcare in recent years - it was Carlow that needed the special status boost.
Which brings us back to where we started. Why not Carlow? Publicly, it is said that at about 50 miles from Dublin, it is too close to the capital; Kilkenny is a further half hour south towards Waterford. Privately, some say it may be because Kilkenny is known to people abroad. It carries a prestigious image to which many Irish inland towns can only aspire. But that cuts no ice with Eddie Coffey, editor of the Nationalist in Carlow. He scrutinises the maps in the impressive spatial strategy document, points to where the "strategic radial corridors" cross the "strategic linking corridors" and marks a large X where Carlow lies, precisely half-way between Waterford and Dublin. "Carlow is a cross-roads, sitting on two main routes between one gateway and another. It is tailor-made for a hub. Kilkenny is on a single road. It makes no sense at any level. It would be suspending reality to say that the political share-out is not relevant to this."
Meanwhile, like it or not, Carlow's status as a commuter town - or "sleeping town" as Jacqui McNabb describes it - seems assured.
The only happy man in Carlow this week turns out to be an estate agent, John O'Neill of Remax. He believes that it is often better for a town to be left alone, free to develop at its natural pace, independent of Government interference or illusory promises.
"If a town grows on its own merits, then investors are under no illusions. They come because the figures add up and because it's a nice town." So, in addition to 800 houses under construction, there are plans for out-of-town clusters, as well as tax-attractive student housing and a new shopping centre. To O'Neill, investors mean property developers. The industrial park is going ahead, he adds, almost as an afterthought.
But for the people of Carlow, that afterthought is their first and only hope.