Regional Development Symposium at UCC Ireland: Sept 2002
A Symposium entitled “A New Agenda for Irish Regional Development” was held at University College Cork, Ireland on 12th /13th September 2002. The event was organized by Eoin O’Leary of the Department of Economics, UCC.
Its purpose was to raise awareness of the problems and opportunities facing Irish regions at the beginning of the new millennium and to analyse, from an economic perspective, the key drivers of regional development and the appropriate policy responses. The symposium was a forum for invited regional economists to present their analyses and recommendations on these important issues to an audience of leading Irish policymakers.
The symposium attracted the interest of policy makers in the area of Irish regional development, including officials of government departments, state agencies, local authorities, regional development agencies and local business groups. Nearly 100 people attended the two-day event, which was considered by all to be very worthwhile. The success of the event is evidenced by some of the issues raised being covered in the Irish Times and the Irish Examiner.
The symposium was chaired by Mr John O’Brien, Special Advisor to the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Ms Mary Harney. The topic for Thursday afternoon was growth, innovation and Irish regional development. Edgar Morgenroth (ESRI) set the scene by outlining how recent advances in economic growth theory and economic geography have improved our understanding of spatial economic phenomena. Rachel Hilliard (NUIG) and David Jacobson (DCU) contended that that it may have been appropriate, from an environmental control perspective, to encourage the concentration of pharmaceutical firms in the Cork area. Stephen Roper (QUB) then argued that less favoured regions find it difficult to appropriate many of the benefits from research and development activity. This was followed by Bernadette Andreosso (UL), who showed that the major disparities in knowledge creation capability are not between the Border, Midlands and West region and the South and East region but within these two broad regions. The session was completed by the first guest speaker, Professor John Dewhurst (Dundee, Scotland) who offered some lessons for Ireland from his analysis of industry performance in Great Britain.
The theme for Friday was Ireland’s regional policy dilemma. Michael Keane (NUIG) showed that techniques from the regional science literature for analyzing commuting patterns should have been considered in the debate on functional economic areas in the national spatial strategy. Ella Kavanagh (UCC) argued that Cork Airport should not adopt higher aeronautical charges than either Dublin or Shannon, but instead should develop a strategy to expand revenue from non-aeronautical commercial sources at the airport. Aisling Reynolds-Feighan (UCD) analysed issues and dilemmas associated with Ireland’s transportation infrastructure. This was followed by Eoin O’Leary (UCC), who argued that the failure of the Irish government to realize that growth in Ireland depends, more than ever before, on the performance of regions outside Dublin, may jeopardize national prosperity over the next 20 years. Kieran O’Donoghue (Forfas) presented an enterprise policy perspective on Irish regional development. Finally, the second guest speaker, Professor Mike Danson (Paisley) offered some wider context based on his work on Regional Development Agencies and economic development in the UK and Europe.
The symposium had three sponsors, to whom the organizers are very grateful. The sponsors were the Association of Irish Regions, which is the representative organization for the Regional Authorities in Ireland, the Faculty of Arts in UCC as well as RSAI(BIS).
