Shortly before retirement as president of Limerick University, Dr Ed Walsh admitted privately that he was more of an entrepreneur than an academic, writes Martin Mansergh
What started as intermediate third-level institutions in the 1970s, the two NIHEs, with a mainly technological orientation, were created universities in 1989, despite then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, and minister for education, Mary O'Rourke, being urged to do some soul-searching by the existing university establishment. At the same time, a green light was given to expanding third-level places, which continued throughout the 1990s and was integral to the Celtic Tiger.
The University of Limerick (UL), like DCU, is a magnificent achievement. There are great facilities for the public, UL housing a concert hall and 50-metre swimming pool; DCU, the Helix. UL has a large campus and generous space for expansion on the banks of the Shannon. Visitors have regularly had to re-orient themselves, such has been the succession of new buildings going up all round what started as Plassey House plus a large education block.
Dr Walsh was a pioneer in fund-raising, tapping remarkably successfully into generous American benefactors. Despite its European orientation - its opening in 1972 coinciding with EEC entry - his great experience of higher education in the United States has made UL an Irish university as close to Boston as Berlin.
UL, along with Shannon Airport, is a lynchpin of the mid-west region, which from mid-century became a model of dynamic regional development, before the gravitational pull of the greater Dublin area began to become overwhelming.
Dr Walsh always had a liking for the soapbox. As he indicated recently, his utopia would probably be a lock, stock and barrel relocation of the capital and the entire apparatus of government to the western corridor between Limerick and Galway.
His recent criticism of the decentralisation programme presents an idealised picture of government, where senior decision-makers from different departments casually drop into each other, and in a benign version of Yes, Minister, supply the glue for cohesive, joined-up government.
Despite best efforts of management committees and secretaries-general, internal communication between similarly employed officials or different sections of just one Department can often be fitful, where people are very busy.
Former Taoiseach John Bruton (Dáil Select Committee on Finance and Public Service, April 7th) was even more forthright, describing the Government's voluntary programme as "the single greatest act of administrative and political vandalism in the history of the State", and as "the destruction of one of the greatest institutions of the State, the Civil Service".
He continued, in language regularly attributed to Prince Charles in Private Eye, to say "it is truly appalling". One would never guess that this was the same person who insisted on staff of the EU Veterinary Office relocating to Grange, Co Meath, and who called for the Book of Kells to be displayed in Kells.
There is no proposal to remove key co-ordinating Departments out of Dublin, such as Taoiseach, Finance and Foreign Affairs. Many other offices are staying, or will be within an hour's travel from Dublin. Co-ordination as well as most informal personal contact takes place at inter-departmental committees, government sub-committees etc, or else on the telephone, none of which will be affected by decentralisation.
There is no basis for Brigid Laffan's claim (July 7th) that management of a successful EU presidency would have been very difficult with decentralisation. The EU, of which she is a superb advocate, functions partly on the basis of summoning delegates from widely dispersed locations to regular meetings.
Most countries avoid concentrating power and higher-level services in one place.
Countries with a federal or devolved system of government have regional or state capitals. Ireland, it is argued, has only the population of the greater Manchester area, and therefore does not need government to be spread out.
(Indeed, such genuine devolution as there is, for example, in the health boards, is being largely retracted.) The fallacy is that Ireland is nowhere near as compact as the greater Manchester area.
A social market economy and private investment can only be centrally directed to a certain degree. One of the most important investments so far this year, 1,000 additional jobs by Guidant Corporation, is Clonmel's answer to its omission as a hub in the National Spatial Strategy. Nevertheless, government can influence development to some degree, through State agencies, provision of infrastructure and location incentives.
Modern government is not just about administrative efficiency or centrally directed planning strategies. It is not about piling wealth and overheating demand in the metropolis, with a few select favoured centres outside standing in line for the overspill. It is, above all, about the consent of the governed.
The move of the German capital to Berlin was only possible if some departments stayed in Bonn. French alienation from the EU would be deep, if the European Parliament were ever to depart from Strasbourg.
The instincts of the Irish people are both competitive and egalitarian. If we are properly concerned about income disparities between individuals, families, and closely adjacent urban or rural areas, we should be equally concerned about wider regional disparities.
While practically every hub or gateway either has or will have decentralised offices, so also will substantial, well-connected market towns that have difficulty in attracting much industry, but which are determined not to be written out of the script.
What is the Dublin mindset, people have asked. Two comments made in the Seanad in recent times supply some answers. Cultural and educational facilities available in Dublin were recently compared to "many of these God-awful places down the country, where all one has is a choice of dingy pubs".
This is a caricature of the quality of life and amenities available, but it is true that an inflow of demanding people would improve the viability of cultural and sporting facilities. The other was a remark that the transport needs of Dublin should be addressed first, before considering the rest of the country. Decentralisation is a better plan for everywhere than many are prepared to allow.