Plan for living the rural dream won’t work without real financial backing

Richard Curran

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April 02 2021 07:17 AM

For so many people the dream of living in a rural idyll has been in their heads for a very long time. It might be a chance to get back to the quiet parish where they grew up, or the idea of returning to live in the town of their childhood.

For others, is it simply about moving out of a large city and bringing up their children in a place surrounded by nature.

But there has always been that one big problem. How do you make a living? Technology has the ability to change that because in theory at least it enables people to work from anywhere. One of the biggest obstacles in the past was convincing your employer that this was possible.

The Covid-19 crisis has proven that in a great many cases it is possible. Now the Government says it wants to make it happen.

As recently as ten years ago, many in rural communities in Ireland believed that if IDA Ireland could just land a factory in the town, employing 200 or 300 people, the whole place would be saved.

There is something genuinely revolutionary about the idea that it isn’t just about attracting 300 new jobs to an area, but attracting 300 new people to an area who already have jobs somewhere else.

The new idea is to attract 300 people who already have jobs rather than a factory.

Technology and the possibility of remote working have the potential to open up that opportunity.

In some rural communities and smaller towns, it will just evolve that way anyway. This is because some towns in Ireland are far better than others when it comes to using their existing intellectual capital to come up with new ideas, to pull together and bring about change.

Other places will need help if they are to maximise this opportunity.

This is where the Government’s new strategy comes into play. There are dozens of ideas contained in the Government’s new plan but no targets, funding or detail on incentives.

It is one thing for the Government to piggyback on a trend that is already happening – such as movement of people from cities, remote working and a new surge in demand for properties in idyllic rural locations.

It is another thing for the Government to drive forward with properly-funded incentives to make sure opportunities are maximised and in the places where they are needed most.

There are two major factors driving this push towards a new life in a small town or a rural community. One is the cost of housing in big cities and the other is quality of life issues around local schools, commutes and space.

If it really happens, house prices in some rural areas will increase. The other reality is that a huge proportion of people living in rural Ireland already commute, often quite long distances, to their jobs in regional towns or cities.

The ultimate goal has been to populate rural communities with people who live and work there. This has tended to be confined to farmers (reducing in number), retailers (under huge pressure), hospitality jobs (depending on tourism) and essential public services like gardaí, teachers and others.

The idea that more people from very different backgrounds and with different ideas would live and work in local communities is radical, and to some extent possible.

Firstly you have to define rural Ireland. Is Dundalk, Portlaoise or Athlone rural Ireland? These are big urban centres with their own challenges, among them the fact that not enough people who live there also work there.

Every day, thousands of people leave Portlaoise by bus, car and train to work in Dublin. Improving the economies of these big towns is a regional economic challenge rather than a rural Ireland revolution.

If one of the big attractions to leave a place like Dublin is to own a larger and less expensive home, or even just to buy any home, then what approach will banks take to granting mortgages?

Will enough people be able to convince the bank that they will have a long-term sustainable job in this rural location, as opposed to their employer in Dublin saying ‘give it a go’ but if it isn’t working out, you’re gone.

It was disappointing to find no money and no targets in the Government’s plan.

The plan also envisages reviving old town and village centres by incentivising future development in the towns instead of on the outskirts. It is tempting to say this is a bit late in many cases, but it is a welcome idea none the less.

However, lots of properties, let’s say old houses in the centre of Limerick City, might be operating as commercial premises. Would a prospective buyer get a mortgage without the property being re-designated residential?

These will be the nuts-and-bolts issues that will have to be dealt with if a genuinely radical change is to take place.

I haven’t even mentioned rural broadband. The situation has improved but is still five to seven years away from where it should be.

Public transport is also a major issue. Do we want a re-population of rural Ireland to be matched with an enormous increase in traffic congestion? The simple truth is that for many people outside of towns, you cannot move without owning a car. You take your life in your hands even on a bicycle with the way many drive.

Transport, broadband, financial incentives and tax breaks, as well as regional economic and spatial planning are all required to do this properly.

That is why it was so disappointing to find no targets and no money in this week’s (otherwise very interesting) plan. The reason given was that it would be a matter for Budget 2022 and that should not be pre-empted.

Why not? Each six-week lockdown is costing €1.5bn in direct exchequer payments. The heavy hitters of Government, who were all there at the announcement (with the exception of the Minister for Finance), should have put some real figures behind it.

I fear that when Budget 2022 comes along, the incentives will be, shall we say, modest.