Any attempt to redraw the map into regions for the next round of EU structural funding will have profoundly negative effects on the Dublin area, the Dublin Regional Authority has warned.
With just a week to go to a Cabinet decision on how the State should be designated for funding, the authority yesterday expressed deep concern about any decision which would exclude disadvantaged communities of Dublin and elsewhere from Objective I structural funding in the years ahead.
The Fianna Fail TD in Dublin North West, Mr Pat Carey, attended a press conference hosted by the authority. He said he would raise the issue of regionalisation at today's meeting of his parliamentary party.
"We must retain the current status of Objective I that Dublin now has. In view of the fact that Dublin has come from such a low economic base with proven levels of deprivation, it is far too early to contemplate changing its status for funding."
The Lord Mayor of Dublin and former chairman of the authority, Mr Joe Doyle, said everyone was aware of the strengths of the Irish economy but "when you dig down, you see its weaknesses". Special attention must be paid to areas of deprivation, in Dublin and elsewhere, and the State should be maintained as one unit for the purpose of EU funding.
Mr Colm McGrath, cathaoirleach of the authority, said if the Government pursued a policy of dividing the State into three regions, there would be considerably less resources for Dublin and other areas.
It is understood the Government has reappraised its policy in recent months and next week will decide on whether such a division will take place. If it proceeds on a policy of regionalisation covering 13 counties, the remaining counties would be designated Objective I in transition which means fewer resources would be available to them.
According to Mr Willie Carroll, director of the authority, regionalisation was a "very crude method" of dealing with specific needs.
A new study entitled The Regional Problem and Urban Deprivation, conducted by two economists at Trinity College Dublin, Prof P.J. Drury and Prof Michael Punch, was presented at yesterday's conference. It said Dublin was not performing well in comparison with some other regions.
Based on an examination of regional economic and social change over the past 25 years, the study said Dublin had lost 26 per cent of its industrial employment between 1971 and 1996.
Although overall employment in the Dublin region had increased by 31 per cent in the last two decades, the labour force increased by 43 per cent in the same period. Job provision had failed to keep pace with labour force growth, resulting in increased unemployment pressures. Dublin had the second-highest level of long-term unemployment in the State in 1996.