If the level of applications for planning permission is an indication of the economic state of a county, then Leitrim is booming. The number of applications received so far this year is 442, which is 40 more than the entire number lodged in 1995.
This building boom is one of the first indications that the recently introduced Rural Renewal tax scheme will have a dramatic effect on the county. The question now being asked is how the tax incentives can best be used to benefit all the population in the long term.
While the scheme is being welcomed, it is recognised that without adequate planning controls, it could have a detrimental effect, particularly on more environmentally sensitive areas.
The scheme, which covers Leitrim, Longford and parts of Sligo, Roscommon and Cavan, offers very attractive tax incentives on rented residential property and industrial and commercial buildings. Unlike other such schemes, there is also tax relief for people who build or renovate properties to live in. This owner-occupancy relief is seen as one of the most important aspects, as full-time residents are what Leitrim needs, and not holiday home buyers in search of a weekend retreat.
The final part of the scheme, the relief for industrial and commercial properties, came into effect on July 1st, a month after the owner occupancy relief. Incentives for rented residential accommodation have been in place since June 1998.
The CEO of Leitrim County Enterprise Board, Ms Dorothy Clarke, said the tax scheme would serve only to undo disadvantages suffered by Leitrim in the past when towns in neighbouring counties such as Sligo and Longford benefited from urban renewal. No town in Leitrim was big enough to qualify.
"We did not have a level playing pitch at all. Why would somebody set up a business in Manorhamilton, for example, when they could travel 16 miles to Sligo and get the incentives?" she said. The county now has two of the main recommendations included in a report by a special task force set up by the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, early last year after the closure of Ballinamore Textiles - the tax scheme and the continuation of Objective One status for EU structural funds.
However, Ms Clarke said the approach of the IDA also needed to change. A number of medium-sized German-owned companies have operated in Leitrim over many years but the only large US-based company in the county is timber processors Masonite.
Ms Clarke said a large investor in the Information Technology sector was badly needed. "We need a more targeted approach from the IDA and companies should be directed towards the Border counties. We are being told that IT and teleworking will solve the problem of peripherality but yet these companies are still going into urban areas like Dublin and Galway." The chief executive of the Western Development Commission, Mr Liam Scollan, said there was no doubt the tax scheme was badly needed. In the commission's development plan, Leitrim was virtually bottom of the table in all the economic indicators. Along with Roscommon it has the lowest rate of employment growth - at 6.3 per cent, less than half the national average. A high dependency on agriculture and forestry and a lack of industry were identified as problems.
Mr Scollan said the tax scheme would undoubtedly represent a turnaround for Leitrim - from being seen as a place to leave, it is now being looked at with great interest by investors.
The issue now for the county was not how to accelerate development but how to manage it. He said that in pushing for the tax scheme the Western Development Commission had also called for an integrated plan for the area covered by it, but this had not happened.
"There needs to be great vigilance on the part of the planning authorities. Development must be planned and not pepper-potted throughout the area and it is down to the local authorities and the Department of the Environment to look at that," Mr Scollan said.
"There have already been criticisms of urban developments in the west of Ireland and we don't want to see ribbons of `mansions on the hill', but at the moment I don't see anything in place to stop that," he added.
Uneven development is already noticeable. Most of the building taking place is in the south of the county and in areas along the Shannon, while there is still a lot of dereliction in other parts. Applications for planning permission for a number of large housing developments have been submitted, some of which are in very small villages.
Fine Gael councillor Mr Damian Brennan called at the last meeting of Leitrim County Council for the County Development Plan to be reviewed, arguing for the need to ensure development is spread evenly.
Mr Brennan told The Irish Times he believed projects worth £8 million were currently under construction in Carrick-on-Shannon. This includes a large new hotel which has recently opened and a large apartment complex. He said he was concerned about a number of projects, particularly one for Dromod, where a proposed housing development would double the size of the village. "There is a danger that we will damage the character of places like Dromod," Mr Brennan said.
While at this early stage there is more evidence of house-building than job creation arising from the tax scheme, one positive statistic to have emerged recently came from the Companies Registration Office.
With 73 new start-ups in the past year, Leitrim had the highest registration of new companies as a percentage of existing enterprises in the whole of the State - 18 per cent of all companies in Leitrim were registered in the past year.