Sir, – Journeying through south Co Leitrim, of late, I came face to face with the cruel realities of attempting to start up a new industry/enterprise.
In the past 12 years, the mainly rural Dromod-Rooskey area alone has lost well over 1,000 jobs. There is great need to create alternative employments. You would think Government policies would be promoting and assisting every effort to create jobs here.
I have found there are no enlightened promotional policies in place which would ease the lot of anyone brave enough to start a small new enterprise. Why? The first instance is the cost of getting electricity reconnected to a small unit in a small village. If the chosen building has been vacant for more than two years, you will be charged about €1,400 for a reconnection that takes eight minutes to accomplish. I contacted the ESB and asked it to explain. Its only defence was that charges such as these have been agreed between the ESB and the Commissioner for Energy Regulation. I could get no more rational explanation. It was a case of “pay up or do without”.
I also heard of an instance where the local authority attempted to extract very high rates from a person who hadn’t even swept the cobwebs off the walls before attempting to equip the place. Add in planning permission, household charges, water charges, waste disposal costs and relatively slow broadband and you can appreciate what Sisyphus must have felt as he rolled the big stone towards the mountain’s summit, only to have it roll back down again.
In order to kick-start a recovery in this area, a whole new set of enlightened policies must be applied throughout the BMW Region. New enterprises must get grants, incentives and tax breaks, with an end to the bureaucratic bungling described above.
I think the prohibitive costs applied to start-ups will soon drive out all the present inhabitants of lovely Leitrim. Maybe the real reason is to allow the horrors of fracking to begin. – Yours, etc,
DES GUCKIAN,
Dromod, Co Leitrim.