Ireland: Rural development in an agrarian society
Summary
Problems of economic and social development dominate the Irish rural development literature. This article distinguishes five separate themes. They are: the
pattern of agricultural adjustment and its consequences for land use and
demography; the evaluation of alternative means of creating employment in
rural areas; the extent and pattern of social deprivation; the investigation of
conflicts in the management of rural resources; and the potential of institutional
innovation to tap local resources and initiative. The major contributions to each
theme are discussed.
1.
Introduction
The concept of 'rural development' is used in this article to mean 'an overall
improvement in the economic and social well-being of rural residents and the
institutional and physical environment in which they live . . .' (Jansma et al.,
1976). In this sense there is no comprehensive policy in Ireland consciously
designed to achieve rural development goals. What does exist is a range of
policies directed towards specific sectors or problems, such as agriculture,
forestry, regional planning, Irish language preservation, amenity development or
social service provision, which together represent an implicit intervention in rural
development processes.
The lack of an integrating focus for policy formulation and analysis is mirrored
in the Irish literature on rural development, especially that by economists.
Although rural area studies are a recognised part of geography and sociology,
•
The author is grateful for helpful comments received from Michael Bannon, Pioinsias
Breathnach, Patrick Commins, PJ. Drudy and Martin Whitby.
Euro R. agr. Eco. 13 (1986), 367-389
O16S-1S87/86/OO13-O367 $2.00
© Mouton de Gruyter, Amsterdam
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ALAN MATTHEWS*
Department of Economics, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
368 Alan Matthews
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the relevant issues are treated by economists, if at all, under the rubric of
regional policy. This is partly explained by the concentration of population and
economic activity in the Dublin area and thus the predominantly rural nature
of all regions outside Dublin. The 1981 Census showed that 44% of the total
population were rural residents (defined narrowly in European terms as those
living outside towns of 1,500 persons upwards). But if the population of Dublin
and its environs is excluded, the predominantly rural nature of the population of
the rest of the country - 62% of the total - is revealed (Bannon, 1983). The
absence of a specific focus on rural problems is also due to the low population
density in these rural regions, ranging from 43 to 23 persons per sq. km., so that
the problems of planning and amenity which so exercise more densely populated
countries play a much smaller role.
Nonetheless, Irish rural areas continue to suffer from a range of problems
associated with limited employment opportunities, demographic imbalances and
restricted access to public and social services. The interests of non-rural dwellers
in the countryside for visual amenity,' access for tourism and recreational
purposes, and in conservation issues, are also receiving increasing attention. In
the academic literature five broad themes can be distinguished (for an earlier
overview, see Commins, 1978).
First, the pattern of farming adjustment to increasing capitalisation and
specialisation and its implications for demographic structure and land use have
been widely explored. The high degree of owner-occupancy of Irish farmland
and the limited use of the land market as a means of transferring land have led
to a rather inflexible land structure with negative consequences for agricultural
output and demographic balance in rural areas. A second theme has been the
need to diversify the economic base of rural areas and to create employment
opportunities in non-agricultural activities. The debate about the spatial distribution of economic activity has focused primarily on regional industrial
policy, but there is a growing awareness of the importance of attracting service
jobs to the rural regions. Alternative 'informal sector' strategies to create
employment in rural areas are also being explored because of the difficulties in
creating sufficient jobs for full employment at the national level.
The third theme concerns access to public and social services in rural areas.
Research has concentrated on documenting variations in the quantity and
quality of services available to different kinds of rural areas, though there has
also been interest in the effects of concentrating infrastructural investment
to facilitate service provision. A fourth theme deals with conflicts between
alternative land uses in rural areas and the need to ensure that the maximum
economic and social benefit is obtained from this important rural resource. The
major conflicts arise between agriculture and forestry in marginal land areas,
between agriculture, forestry and energy exploitation in peatland areas, between
agriculture and conservation particularly in wetland areas, and between agricultural and urban land uses along the urban fringes, particularly of Dublin. A
fifth theme' focuses on administrative and organisational issues in rural develop-
Ireland: Rural development in an agrarian society
369
2.
Descriptive studies
The quality of empirical work on rural areas and development processes is
dependent on the availability and reliability of relevant statistics, whether
collected through census or by survey. The quality of the statistical information
on a sub-national level in Ireland is very variable. Regional differences in economic and social indicators, including demography, labour force characteristics,
land use patterns and living standards, are described in a number of studies (for
example, Conway and Higgins, 1979; Foley, 1985; Gillmor, 1985). Descriptive
data can also be found in the many regional and sub-regional resource inventory
and planning studies commissioned during the past two decades (Gillmor, 1985
contains an inventory of these studies).
One use of economic and social indicators is in taxonomic studies which
attempt to identify regions on either homogeneity or functional criteria. Baker
and Ross (1970) used employment and income data to question the traditional
grouping of counties used in regional policy. They found no discontinuities
which would justify a division into regions on a developmental basis, and concluded that the rankings of most counties are subject to continual change over
time. Their conclusion was disputed by Kamann (1982, 1983) who used factor
analysis to define homogeneous regional areas and to derive composite indicators
of regional performance. Kamann developed a system to measure both production structure (technology) and social structure at a county level. On the
basis of his results, he distinguished between commercial, market-oriented
regions on the one hand and traditional, self-reliance-oriented regions on the
other. Monitoring developments over time, he concluded that no significant
change in the relative ordering of counties had taken place over the period 196171. Foley (1985) discusses the problems in classifying regions in the context of
providing government incentives for employment creation and tries to suggest
objective criteria to designate regions qualifying for aid.
Sophisticated efforts to identify homogeneous regions have also been applied
in an agricultural context. Gillmor (1977) reviews previous attempts in this
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ment, in particular, the potential of voluntary cooperative and community
development activity, the appropriate organisation of statutory bodies for rural
development and possible models of co-operation between the two sectors.
The purpose of this article is to survey the major contributions to these
themes in the Irish literature. The emphasis is on economic studies, and, for
reasons of space, studies of a largely agricultural and sociological nature have
been excluded. For the former, O'Connor and Sheehy (1985) provide an overview of Irish agriculture, while Symes (1981) and O'Connor and Daly (1983)
provide a survey of Irish rural community studies and studies of social change in
rural Ireland from a sociological viewpoint. Breathnach (1984c) is a valuable
complementary review of Irish economic geography.
370 Alan Matthews
There has been relatively little use of regional or sub-regional input-output
models to display the extent of economic interdependence within rural areas and
the nature of their linkages with the rest of the world. The major problem is the
lack of readily-available data for their construction. Henry (1977) provides a
numerical illustration of regional modelling ideas using a two-region model, one
region consisting of the major urban boroughs, and the other the remainder of
the State. While data inadequacies mean that the two transaction tables are
largely illustrative, his study brings out the fact that regional sector multipliers
can differ significantly. A regional input-output model was constructed by
Cuddy and Prendergast (1975) for the West region and subsequently updated
(Cuddy and Boylan, 1983). They use this model to draw attention to the high
level of leakages from the region and to suggest strategies for the region to
capture a higher level of regional expenditure (Boylan and Cuddy, 1984). A
study by O'Connor et al. (1981), which examined the likely economic and social
effects of building a large coal-fired electricity generating plant at Moneypoint,
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area and was the first to use cluster analysis to delimit regions with similar
enterprise structures. Subsequently O'Carroll et al. (1978), Walsh (1980b) and
Conway (1982) explored the inter-relations between changes in many aspects of
agriculture and attempted to identify homogeneous agricultural regions through
factor and cluster analysis.
A second use of regional indicators is to measure and compare regional performance. Martin (1971) tested the *balanced growth' hypothesis of a tendency
towards convergence in regional per capita incomes relative to the national
figure, and concluded that regional growth was unbalanced in the 1960-65
period. Using an information theoretic approach Walsh and O'Kelly (1979)
confirmed Martin's conclusion that spatial inequality in per capita income increased up to the mid 'sixties but found that subsequently it steadily declined.
They linked this to the change in emphasis in economic planning away from a
primary concern with national growth towards a concern with regional balance
at this time.
Despite the fact that rural areas are not uniform or homogeneous, there have
been few attempts to classify rural areas at a more micro level to highlight the
diversity of their experiences. Duffy (1978) distinguishes in a qualitative manner
between rural hinterlands, open countrysides and remote areas, and explains
their different population experiences through the different weighting of agricultural occupations with relatively rapid rates of decline in the total. Drudy and
Drudy (1979) propose a two-fold classification of rural areas into 'marginal'
and 'prosperous'. Marginal areas are distinguished by poor physical conditions,
low productivity and low incomes in agriculture and a social and demographic
pattern inimical to development. Prosperous regions have experienced agricultural development but the concomitant mechanisation and increased use of
purchased inputs have reduced labour requirements considerably. They argue
that despite the different reasons for out-migration the outcomes are much the
same - depopulation, service deterioration and increased dependency.
Ireland: Rural development in an agrarian society
371
Hannon's (1969) study of Irish rural migration decision-making found that
the frustration of job aspirations was a predominant cause of migration with
little explanatory power being given to dissatisfaction with the rural community.
The extent of internal migration is very low by international standards, and the
primacy of Dublin city and county as the destination for and origin of those
moving within the country is striking (Hughes and Walsh, 1980). This study also
found evidence of much more two-way movement between Dublin and other
urban areas than in the past. Contiguity and/or distance were shown to be the
dominant influences on short term inter-country and inter-regional movements.
When flows over longer time periods were studied, the role of income differentials and/or changes in employment became important.
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County Clare used a specially constructed regional input-output table to
estimate the economic effects in the impact area. Their study drew attention to
the possible problems arising from the inevitable decline in employment and
income when construction is completed and recommended a much greater effort
to integrate site workers and their families into local communities during the
construction phase.
A number of studies have examined the demography of Irish rural areas.
Long-term trends in the distribution of the Irish population by region and type
of settlement are examined in Walsh (1978). Projections of population by
county and region have generally been based on the 'cohort component' technique (Knaggs and Keane 1971; Blackwell and McGregor 1982). Walsh (1980a)
compared the ability of the Knaggs and Keane model to forecast the regional
distribution of total population with 'naive' models. His negative conclusion was
that elaborateness of their model did not result in any improvement in its ability
to anticipate the future regional distribution of population compared with the
results obtained from a naive extrapolation of past growth rates.
Labour force projections and projections of labour demand at the regional
level have been made by Conway and Higgins (1979) and Ross and Walsh (1979).
Both studies project labour supply by applying labour force participation rates
for each age group in each region to population estimates derived by the cohort
technique, although they use different migration assumptions. The projected
demand for labour was built up by a mixture of methods including extrapolation
of past trends and the use of outside information on the growth of certain sectors. Conway and Higgins used relationships established by Baker and Ross
(1975) between growth in the autonomous and induced sectors at the county
level to derive employment estimates for the heterogeneous 'other' sector consisting largely of services and other regionally non-traded employment, and thus
derived explicit projections of excess labour supply in each region. Ross and
Walsh derive instead a figure for required employment in the 'other' sector as
a residual, but note that achieving their projections would require quite dramatic
reversals in previous employment trends.
372 Alan Matthews
3.
The pattern of agricultural modernisation
The constraints imposed by the land tenure system on agricultural development were identified by the Interdepartmental Committee on Land Structure
Reform (1978). It highlighted the adverse implications for land use and production of the high degree of owner-occupancy, the restricted role of the land
market, the pattern of late inheritance and succession, and the growing incidence
of part-time farming. Land policy has been implemented by a statutory body,
the Land Commission, through a programme of land acquisition and allotment
and the rearrangement of fragmented holdings. The Interdepartmental Committee recommended that, in future, the objectives of land policy should put
more emphasis on land use rather than land restructuring, and that the direct
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Despite the growing importance of non-agricultural employment in rural areas,
farming still accounts for 25% of the labour force in all regions outside Dublin
and for 45% of the rural population. Agricultural policy, and the pattern of
agricultural adjustment to the changing economic environment, has profound
consequences for rural development. In Ireland, as elsewhere, the nature of
this adjustment has led to a dualistic structure within the farm economy, with
a widening division between successful farms and those suffering underemployment and low incomes (Commins et ah, 1978). Apart from its social
consequences, the growing marginalisation of smaller farms has had a negative
impact on agricultural development. Because land tenure patterns and public
policies have not been conducive to land mobility between potential users, land
holdings have accumulated in relatively unproductive hands and agricultural
land has fallen into low-intensity usage or even dereliction.
Agricultural development policies can be divided into productivity policies,
designed to encourage existing farm managers to increase output through investment and the adoption of new techniques, and structural policies, designed to
influence the pace and direction of land transfers over time. The rationale and
effectiveness of State expenditure on productivity policies have been assessed
by Matthews (1983) and proposals for reform are discussed in Sheehy et al.
(1978). Kelleher and CHara (1978) point out that existing agricultural policies
assume a high degree of economic rationality on the part of farmers. They place
heavy reliance on manipulating economic variables (such as farm prices and
grant levels) rather than tackling structural problems (such as land tenure) or
facilitating attitudinal and behavioural change. Their effect is therefore to write
off a large segment of low-income farmers from serious consideration in the
effort to achieve high development levels. In a later study Kelleher and O'Mahony
(1984) investigated the economic and welfare situation of a sample of marginal
farmers, and discussed how the state's policy initiatives impacted on them. An
important dimension in their analysis was a breakdown of the marginal sector
between an undeveloped group who have remained full-time in farming, those
with an off-farm job, and those who are land-holders but had retired or semiretired from farming.
Ireland: Rural development in an agrarian society
373
Lucey and Kaldor found that farm output and investment was higher on parttime farms, and initiated a continuing controversy on the impact of part-time
farming on agricultural policy objectives. The more recent work by Higgins and
Cawley argues that when farm performance is measured in terms of output or
income per hectare, part-time farmers as a group performed worse than fulltime ones. But Higgins found that part-time fanners continued to perform as
well as full-time farmers who practised the same system of production, despite
the fact that agricultural policy discriminates against them.
4.
Diversifying the economic base of rural areas
Concern for the economic problems of rural areas in Ireland has a long, if
sporadic, history. The Congested Districts Board was established in 1891 to promote agricultural, forestry, fishing and industrial development in the western
counties until its dissolution in 1923 (see Micks, 1925 for an account of its
activities). In the 1950s and 1960s a new initiative started, marked by an
emphasis on investment incentives to encourage the location of industry in certain less developed regions. The primary purpose of the policy was to redress the
industrial imbalance between the eastern and western parts of the country, but
it gave rise to a debate of great significance for Irish rural development on
whether such industrialisation should be concentrated in a limited number of
'growth centres' or more widely dispersed over a relatively large number of
centres; The most detailed proposal for a growth centre strategy was the
Buchanan Report, which advocated that 75% of new industrial employment over
a twenty-year period should be concentrated in nine urban centres (Buchanan
and Partners, 1968). This policy was rejected by the Government of the day,
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intervention of the Land Commission in the land market should be replaced by
the more indirect role of influence and regulation.
The study of the impact of part-time fanning in Ireland was pioneered by
Lucey and Kaldor (1969) who examined the impact of industrialisation in two
rural towns. Two recent surveys, by Higgins (1983) and Cawley (1983), have
added greatly to the information available. Research has concentrated on two
main issues: (a) identifying the characteristics of part-time farmers and the factors affecting their adoption of off-farm employment, and (b) examining its impact on the rural economy as expressed in investment patterns and land use.
Both Higgins and Cawley confirm the results of studies elsewhere that part-time
farms are on average smaller than full-time ones, and that part-time farmers are
younger and in earlier stages of the family cycle. Higgins, in addition, examined
the distribution of occupations and job status of part-time farmers. Almost 32%
of his sample was self-employed (which may be related to his wide definition of
a part-time farmer as any farm operator who worked four or more weeks in an
off-farm activity), and this group was concentrated in the more prosperous
farming areas.
374
Alan Matthews
.
.
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which opted instead for the maximum spread of industrial development. Subsequent regional industrial plans of the Industrial Development Authority (IDA),
the national agency charged with the promotion of industrial development,
were based on a dispersal strategy for new industry. Evaluation of the regional
distribution'of new industrial jobs shows that the strategy was successful, and
that the predominantly rural regions did very well in industrial job creation even
during a decade of economic difficulty (Bradley, 1981).
<
•Analysis of the locational pattern of grant-aided industry has found that
plants are considerably more footloose with respect to regional location than
they are to town size (even though 25% of the IDA's new industry projects and
16% of the jobs located in rural areas outside towns of 1,500 population and
above in the 1960-73 period) (O'Farrell, 1979). Although the probability of a
town attracting a new industry does not vary substantially by region it does vary
by town size. O'Farrell attributes the even regional distribution to IDA policies,
particularly the spatially differentiated capital grants system and the organisation
of itineraries of prospective investors. Breathnach (1982) mentions in addition
the role of the IDA's advance factory construction programme, as well as
drawing attention to reasons why industrial firms, particularly foreign firms,
might well prefer rural locations for industrial relations reasons.
Further light on the pattern of rural industrialisation might be expected from
a study of industrial closures, but no simple pattern emerges in O'Farrell's
(1983) study. Closure rates were found to be independent of: number of years
of operation, manufacturing sector, organisational type, nationality, regional
location, peripheral location, or site of town in which located and related only
to projected employment size, the highest rate of closure occuring in plants with
less than 75 employees. Ruane (1983), in an analysis of the closure of one rural
plant, draws attention to a range of explanatory reasons. Remoteness does
emerge as a negative factor, but only one of a number which ultimately led to
closure.
The experience with the local impact of rural industrialisation has been summarised by Breathnach (forthcoming) under economic, demographic and sociocultural headings. The economic effects investigated include the impact on local
wage rates, the extent of local purchasing and the impact on agricultural production. He also found evidence of extensive internal migration arising from
rural industrialisation, as well as the generation of a considerable commuting
population. In socio-cultural terms an important impact is the induction of considerable numbers of rural women into the industrial workforce. A particularly
extreme tension occurs in the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht areas when rural industrialisation takes place through in-migration of mainly foreign-owned firms.
Here the conflict between linguistic and economic objectives can be particularly
difficult to resolve (Kane, 1977). The consequences of industrialisation for social
relationships is also the theme of a major longitudinal examination of industrialisation and social change in the West Limerick area undertaken by O'Connor and
Daly (1983).
Ireland: Rural development in an agrarian society
375
The contribution of tourism and recreation to rural development is widely
acknowledged but there has been little empirical investigation to quantify their
role and characteristics (Gillmor, 1985, provides an up-to-date overview of the
Irish literature). Deane (1980), in a review of national tourism policy, pointed
out that public and private investment in tourism favours urban locations because of the greater risk of locating in rural areas. He recommends that grants
should be made available to the private sector as a regional policy measure to
enable rural areas to attract a greater proportion of tourism investment than
they do at present. The potential of local employment programmes in rural
areas, largely in the environmental and personal service areas (amenity development, child-minding), is explored in Conway and Higgins (1979). They argue
that it is necessary to look at the creation of new demands for labour to ensure higher employment, and identify various activities in rural areas which
government-funded community employment schemes could undertake.
5.
Rural social service provision
There is very little research on rural social service provision in Ireland, although
on both environmental grounds (the sparsity of population and its dispersed
pattern of settlement, and poor communications and transport services) and on
demographic grounds (the unbalanced population structure and high dependency ratio resulting from persistent out-migration) one would expect the pattern
of demand for social services to differ and to require different delivery systems
compared to urban areas. The principal research tasks would seem to be the
identification and measurement of social needs in rural Ireland, the investigation of the consequences of the changing location pattern of social service pro-
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With new job creation increasingly taking place in the services area, attention
has turned to the role of service employment in regional development. In the
1960s research and planning proceeded on the assumption that the expansion of
services would be induced by the expansion of other sectors and that its regional
pattern would be largely determined by the spatial distribution of manufacturing
employment creation. In fact, service employment, and particularly office
employment, became increasingly concentrated in the Dublin area. Thus despite
the better • performance of the more rural regions in industrial employment
creation, regional disparities in employment levels have continued to widen because of their greater dependence on agriculture and their smaller proportion of
service jobs (Cuddy, 1983). Measures to stimulate service employment in the
regions outside Dublin are discussed in Bannon et al. (1976). The public sector,
which accounts for a growing proportion of service employment, might-be
expected to play a leading role, but experience to date with attempts to relocate
public service employment outside the Dublin area has been disappointing
(Humphreys, 1983).
376 Alan Matthews
Kelleher and O'Mahony (1984) investigated the welfare position of the
marginalised farm sector, defined as farm households with a low level of income
from farming. They drew attention to the diversity of sources of their total
household income and the comparatively high incidence of poverty within certain subcategories of this population. Their data also showed that the latter
groups suffer relatively high illness rates and a high degree of social isolation.
A careful study of social needs and levels of disadvantage in three types of rural
areas was undertaken by O'Mahony (1985). Her objective was to delineate the
geographical distribution of social disadvantage based on a case study of one
Health Board's Community Care Programme (responsible for the provision of a
wide range of services including primary medical care, the preventative medical
services, the child health service, income maintenance schemes and the personal
social services). In addition to Census-type data the study included a survey of
the caseloads of public health nurses, social workers and community welfare
officers. Although the pattern of needs differed significantly in the different
areas there was no evidence that the more rural areas had a lower requirement
for services.
This spatially-dispersed pattern of needs contrasts with the growing centralisation of service provision and its concentration in urban centres, giving rise to
the challenge of ensuring equality of access to services in rural areas. Public
debate in Ireland has focused on the location of rural primary schools (following
the publication of the OECD Report Investment in Education (Government,
1966) and hospitals (following the Fitzgerald Report (Government, 1968)).
The OECD Report indicated that on a cost-effectiveness basis the small one- or
two-teacher primary schools common in rural areas were inefficient, and a programme of rationalising and amalgamating these schools was begun following its
publication. The introduction of a free transport scheme for primary school
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vision, and the exploration of the implications of alternative ways of providing
these services.
The most comprehensive review of social service provision in rural areas is
Curry (1976). He describes their changing demographic situation and highlights
the effects of migration and population decline on rural household composition.
His report also briefly describes housing, health, education and income maintenance programmes as they affect rural residents. For some of these services
the greater level of disadvantage in rural areas has been documented. Roche
(1984) found that the risk of poverty was greatest in the less industrialised
regions, and that about half of all poor households on various poverty line
measures were located in rural areas although such households represented only
44% of his sample. A survey of the characteristics of the rural housing stock
both in Ireland and other EC countries using Census statistics concluded that
rural housing is generally older and less well served with facilities than urban
dwellings in virtually every member state (Pratschke, 1981). He suggested a new
role for the European Social Fund to provide aid to refurbish and renovate rural
houses.
Ireland: Rural development in an agrarian society
311
6.
Rural resource management
Issues relating to the use and management of rural resources are attracting an
increasing amount of attention from Irish geographers and economists, although
the work is still in its infancy. Convery (1972) provides a review of the early
Irish literature. Part of the explanation for the relatively slow development of
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pupils in 1967-68 facilitated these closures. The same report drew attention to
the geographical imbalance in the location of post-primary schools in that such
schools were strongly under-represented in rural areas. The State subsequently
undertook a building programme to reduce this, and the free transport scheme
was also important in raising rural participation rates in post-primary schooling.
The economic and cost aspects of the school transport scheme were reviewed
by Hyland Associates Ltd. (1978).
The high level of state involvement in ensuring access to education in rural
areas is rather unique. Apart from Health Boards providing a local taxi service'
to low-income households to enable them to attend hospital, problems of access
to other social services are not directly addressed (O'Mahony, 1985). Alternative
means of delivering services (for example, through the use of mobile clinics, or
by 'piggy-backing' other services on to existing ones, such as the post) have not
been formally evaluated in the literature, although they are no doubt considered by the administrative agencies concerned. O'Mahony (1985) also discussed the role of voluntary organisations in the provision of rural social services
in the context of the Community Care Programme. One successful example of
voluntary initiative is the Rural Housing Organisation, a non-profit-making
private company with the objective of re-populating villages in Ireland through
the provision of new housing (Callanan, 1976). The organisation is credited with
meeting a demand for village residence by people working in rural industries,
although some of the broader claims for rural regeneration made on its behalf
have been challenged (O'Brien, 1976; Callanan, 1977).
The usefulness of economic analysis in assisting the choice of location for
public service facilities which must balance economic arguments for efficiency
in their development and operation with social considerations of geographical
equity and ease of access has been demonstrated by Horner and Taylor (1979).
If the notion of 'best service' is defined (for example, by specifying that the distance travelled by the total population is minimised, or that the minimum
hinterland needed to support the efficient operation of the facility is made a
condition of the solution), then 'location-allocation' algorithms can be applied
to allocate facilities in a way which provides this optimal service. These authors
provide a case study of optimal hospital location which minimises the total
travel costs of the population, and note the potential for applying this technique
to other location decisions where a countrywide network of facilities must be
provided.
378 Alan Matthews
Over much of the country the major alternative land use to agriculture is
forestry, although it occupies only about 5% of the land surface. Because of a
vigorous programme of State afforestation the proportion of State forest (77%)
is the highest in Europe. Farrell (1983) describes the administrative, legislative
and socio-political controls over land acquisition for forestry. Irish forestry
policy is comprehensively discussed in Convery (1979) and Review Group on
Forestry (1985).
The economic impact of transferring land from agricultural to forestry use
was investigated by Convery (1973a) using a form of 'economic base' methodology. His case study area was County Leitrim, a relatively poor county by
Irish standards with drumlin soils difficult for agriculture but technically very
suitable to forestry. He found both income and employment would tend to fall
in the early years of a transfer to forestry but would increase in later years,
compared to keeping land in agricultural use. A discount rate of 3.3% equated
discounted employment in the two users. A rate of time preference higher than
this would 'favour' agriculture, while a lower rate would favour forestry. For
income, the equalising discount rate for agriculture was around 10%. Forestry's
more favourable position as a generator of income was partly attributed to the
fact that all of the forest output went to intermediate processors, while much of
the farm output 'leaked' directly into final demand. Given the economically de-
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interest no doubt lies in Ireland's low population density, its relatively low per
capita income and relatively extensive forms of agricultural production. Gillmor
(1981) has drawn attention to the growing demands on rural resources for a
widening range of purposes. He predicts increasing conflicts between alternative
uses of land and suggests there is an urgent need for an integrative national land
use policy.
Gillmor justifies this on the grounds that 'coordination, planning and management policies are essential in order to lessen the likelihood of inefficient use,
wrong usage and conflicts between different interests' (p. 12). Implicit in this
argument is the belief that the market, mechanism is seriously deficient in
allocating resources to their optimal uses in rural areas. One reason for this is
that many of the outputs of land-based activities are unpriced. There is also a
widespread belief that the market mechanism encourages the pursuit of shortterm considerations at the expense of the longer-term welfare of society and its
environment. In the Irish literature there has been little discussion of the relative
merits of different approaches to State intervention, whether through tax and
subsidy policies, through planning and regulation, or through direct investment,
to deal with these shortcomings where they occur. The Irish literature is mainly
concerned with the evaluation of alternative land uses or of specific government
investments in rural land. Cost-benefit analysis is the preferred technique,
though to date little progress has been made in incorporating the value of nonmarketed outputs into the analyses. Nor has much attention been paid, to the
fact that one form of land use, agriculture, is the recipient of very major subsidies both directly and through market price support.
Ireland: Rural development in an agrarian society
379
To date there has been little economic evaluation of recreational uses for
rural resources in Ireland. For example, Cabot (1982) evaluated alternative uses
for forest areas around the Poulaphuca reservoir, south of Dublin. Because of
the combination of woodland, lakeland and mountain and proximity to the
capital city, the amenity value of the plantations is very high. But his evaluation
confined itself to the timber management options, and the recreational options
were not considered. One exception is a study of salmon angling by O'Connor
et al. (1973, 1974). The value added (including the induced value added)
generated by the expenditure of salmon anglers was used to measure the value of
this resource. While the total income generated appears small, in particular in
disadvantaged regions, the income from visiting anglers probably exceeds that of
most agricultural enterprises. A methodological appendix in the 1974 publication discusses alternative approaches to the economic evaluation of recreational facilities.
Landscape quality is a rural resource which is particularly vulnerable because
of its public good nature. One inventory has classified 17.6% of the country as
outstanding landscape (An Foras Forbartha, 1977). Threats to such landscapes
arise from many forms of development, but particularly housing. Rural housing
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pressed nature of the area in question, and'thus the expectation that the local
rate of time preference for income and employment would be high, these results
may explain the slow adoption of private forestry despite its apparent financial
attractions. The comparison was extended to the balance of payments implications in Convery (1973b) which showed that even when future values are
heavily discounted, forestry had the advantage as a generator of foreign earnings
per land unit on lowland drumlin soils.
Convery and Dripchak (1983) .estimated net financial returns to agriculture,
conventional forestry and energy crops (short-rotation forestry) on land in
North-West Ireland which is marginal for farming. Even taking account of the
uncertainty with respect to future prices, they concluded that it would be economically efficient to convert some of the lowest yielding land in agriculture to
tree farming. Convery (1981) estimated that the conversion of 1 million acres of
marginal land (out of 8.3 million acres) would increase landowner income by
IR£50 million annually. He listed the constraints to doing this as the long production cycle in forestry, unfamiliarity with forest production on the part of
landowners and their advisers, and the intellectual and practical domination of
the forestry profession by the State. To overcome the liquidity problem,
Convery (1979) suggested a long term leasing scheme with landowners, whereby
they would be paid an annual rental for the use of their land for tree-growing.
The State, in association with some of the banks and other financial institutions,
would undertake to establish and manage the crop and sell the output, paying
the landowner an index-linked rental. But despite very attractive grants for
private forestry under the EC Western Package Scheme a recent assessment concluded that 'the attitude of the farming community is, at best apathy, and at
worst antipathy to the idea of forestry' (Gallagher, 1983).
380 Alan Matthews
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policy in principle is based on the 'key settlement' concept (except for one
period in the mid-1970s which loosened controls on single houses in rural areas).
However, this policy has not been widely accepted in practice. Around 40% of
the total of new houses are 'one-off houses, the vast majority of which are built
in rural areas. This is despite the fact that urban-generated rural houses have
public capital costs on average five times higher in rural than hi urban areas and
on-going public costs three times as large (Mawhinney, 1984).
The protection of landscape values is one of the functions of the country
development plan. The basic protection it can give is to state that a policy of
strict or special control will operate in these areas. However, if a planning
application is turned down solely on amenity grounds the planning authority
could be open to a claim for compensation. This tends to undermine its role as
a protector of amenity. Another weakness is that the use of land for agricultural
or forestry purposes is exempt from planning control, permitting land drainage
and reclamation to proceed without control (Mawhinney, 1984). There is no
national guidance in the selection of areas of outstanding landscape importance,
nor is there national support or recognition of responsibility.
The 1963 Planning Act does provide for Special Amenity Area Orders to protect landscape on the grounds of outstanding natural beauty, special recreational
value or the need for nature conservation, under which the payment of compensation is precluded for refusal of planning permission. Although this power could
be used to create areas of protected landscape where most land would be
privately owned and where agriculture and- other economic activities could be
carried on, no such orders have as yet been made since the introduction of the
Act.
The Government, through the National Parks and Monuments Branch of the
Office of Public Works, has increased its conservation activity in recent years.
Four national parks have been established for conservation purposes with an
area of 21,000 ha. In addition, nature reserves — places of high scientific biological interest protected and managed for that interest — can be created under
the 1976 Wildlife Act. A total area of 163,000 ha. in around 250 sites has been
recommended for inclusion in the national nature reserve network (Neff, 1984).
Because protected areas based on outright acquisition and ownership or strict
management agreements can only be of limited extent, other alternatives to protecting areas are needed.
The topography of rural Ireland is such as to require extensive land drainage
for efficient agricultural production. An extensive programme of arterial
drainage has been undertaken by the Office of Public Works (OPW). The OPW
is unique among Irish public agencies in publishing the results of cost-benefit
studies of proposed drainage schemes (for example, see Government, 1978,
for an assessment of the Maigue drainage scheme). Bruton and Convery (1982)
provide a comprehensive overview of the economics of this programme.
In the Maigue drainage scheme the benefit-cost ratio is calculated using a discount rate of 3.5% above inflation, although the sensitivity of this ratio to a
Ireland: Rural development in an agrarian society
381
Their analysis does not take into account the environmental impact of arterial
drainage, although partly under pressure from the European Parliament an 'environmental clause' was inserted in the EC-funded scheme for agricultural
development in the West of Ireland. Apart from changes in landscape quality,
there is damage to wildfowl habitats. Ireland's wetlands are particularly important as a passage and wintering area for migrant wildfowl. Only recently have
initiatives been taken to study the environmental impact of arterial drainage,
and, as yet, only meagre protection is offered to wildlife habitats in Ireland
(Kelly, 1984).
One aspect of arterial drainage which is generally considered beneficial is its
effect on neighbouring peatlands. Peatland is a major Irish resource, accounting
for 17% of the total land surface, and is exploited for fuel, agriculture and for
forestry plantation. Because living peatlands have become rare in other European
countries, considerable international importance attaches to those remaining in
Ireland and there is thus also a conservation dimension in evaluating alternative
uses. The controversy between exploitation and conservation is well described in
van Eck et al. (1984). Their report provides a detailed description of alternative
exploitation uses and recommends a conservation strategy. Conservation is
defended on scientific, education, tourism and ethical grounds. There is no
attempt to calculate a monetary value for these benefits which might be compared to alternative peatland uses. The future use of cutaway bog is also controversial. Research has shown that bogland offers real potential for farming and
forestry, but that the best results are obtained when a two-metre peat base is
left (Kearns, 1979). Because this reduces the fuel value of the bog, there is an
immediate land use conflict which to date remains unresolved (Interdepartmental Committee, 1979).
7. Institutional issues
The institutional framework for rural development is influenced by the very
centralised character of the Irish public administration system. Responsibility
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range of discount rates between 2 and 7% was also tested. One approach used to
estimate the benefit of drainage is to calculate the improved market value of
agricultural land which benefits; another is to calculate the future stream of
earnings from the drainage investment. In both cases, benefits are valued at
prices reflecting the existing level of EC support. In principle, the two approaches
should yield the same result if improved earnings from land reclamation are
reflected in land values, but in practice, the improved market value of land
approach captures only a fraction of the calculated present value of future
earnings. The main reason for this is because in computing the stream of future
earnings the OPW uses gross margins rather than net profits, and ignores certain
overhead costs as well as the cost of the farmers' own labour. Bruton and
Convery prefer the improved market value of land approach, and conclude on
this basis that arterial drainage no longer appears to be a worthwhile investment.
382 Alan Matthews
In contrast to official policy in the 1950s and 1960s which favoured development through imported enterprise, more recently the role of indigenous resources
and initiative is being emphasised. This partly reflects .the growing difficulty in
creating additional employment at the national level. In academic circles it also
reflects dissatisfaction with 'top-down' approaches to rural and regional development, and greater interest in encouraging involvement by local communities in
defining, designing and implementing development projects. This mood is
reflected in two specific concerns (a) the appropriate structure of local government, and (b) the respective roles of statutory and voluntary agencies in rural
development and the relationship between them. Because proposals for local
government reform have not got beyond the discussion stage, this review is confined to the literature on the second theme.
The range of voluntary organisations in rural areas is described in Commins
(1984). He identifies a variety of community development activities, including
community councils, local development associations, community co-operatives
and social service councils. Surveying the relationship between these organisations and the State, Commins observes that 'the increasing rhetoric about the
role of community and self-help organisations in solving national problems has
not been matched by realistic attempts to develop a better basis for participation
between statutory and voluntary bodies' (p. 23). Elsewhere, he argues that the
support of community or locally-based groups should be an essential element of
rural development policy (Commins et al., 1978). This report contains a number
of proposals to make locality and community development an integral part of
county and regional development.
The difficulties faced by community organisations are documented by
O'Cearbhaill (1982) on the basis of a survey of social organisations in the West
of Ireland. Scarcity of funds, lack of enthusiasm in the community, lack of
personnel offering their services and lack of expert advice were identified as the
main areas of difficulty in order of importance. Problems in voluntary agency
relationships with statutory bodies are discussed by Commins et al. (1978)
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for economic planning in rural areas is fragmented between a large number of
state agencies with a developmental role. Of particular rural developmental
interest are two development agencies with executive powers responsible for
particular areas, the Shannon Free Airport Development Company and Udaras
na Gaeltachta (the Gaeltacht Authority). The former was established in 1959 to
create commercial reasons for planes to land at Shannon Airport and pioneered
the concept of an industrial estate within a duty-free zone. In 1969, the Company was given responsibility for the industrial development of the Mid-West
region, and since 1978 its brief has been the promotion of small indigenous
manufacturing industries in that region (Callanan, 1984). The Gaeltacht Authority was established for linguistic reasons to act as a comprehensive development agency for the scattered Irish-speaking Gaeltacht areas along the western
seaboard. Many commentators have drawn attention to the multiplicity of
agencies and the lack of co-ordination of their activities (Brennan, 1976).
Ireland: Rural development in an agrarian society
383
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who examined an EC-sponsored pilot programme of community development
implemented by Muintir na Tire, a rural voluntary organisation with around 250
affiliated community councils. Dennett et al. (1982) describe the experience
with community development projects in rural areas organised under another EC
scheme, the pilot scheme to combat poverty.
One particular type of community organisation, the community development
co-operative (CDC) has attracted much attention. The first CDC was formed in
1967 and by 1979 there were 16 with around 8,000 shareholders in all. CDCs
are characterised by their relatively small scale of operation, their close identification with particular localities (typically over half of all households in their
impact area will be members) and their multipurpose nature (the typical CDC
will be involved in 4 or 5 different activities). Their activities include the provision of services (piped water and electricity), the development of natural
resources (land reclamation, bog development, fish farming) and tourism-related
activities (Irish language colleges, handicrafts) as well as a variety of miscellaneous
activities (Breathnach, 1984a).
Their economic impact remains small to date (the 16 CDCs between them
employed around 200 people with a turnover of IR£2 million in 1979). They
have excited considerable interest, partly because they are seen as models of an
alternative democratic and decentralised rural development strategy, and partly
because they have been established in very remote and peripheral areas where cooperative activity, and indeed economic activity in general, has a very poor
record.
Most of the early CDCs were established in Irish-speaking Gaeltacht areaswhich in the 1960s were characterised by the growth of a vigorous protest movement and the initiation of self-help groups. The availability of government aid
through the two statutory agencies with a remit to assist economic development
in Irish-speaking areas, the Gaeltacht Authority and the Department of the
Gaeltacht, also helps to explain the spatial distribution of early CDCs (Johnson,
1979).
Both O'Brien (1982) and Breathnach (1984b) ask why cooperatives should be
initiated, survive and sometimes prosper in areas where private entrepreneurs
have not managed to bring about development? Their answers emphasise the role
of development groups in the provision of social and cultural services and as a
framework for stimulating entrepreneurial activity. They also note the possibility
that the culture of these areas is inimical to the growth of private enterprise and
more conducive to communal approaches to economic problems.
It is difficult to evaluate the CDCs' contribution because much of it is intangible. The government has supported them because of the State policy of
language preservation. In narrow economic terms their performance has not been
impressive. Commins (1983) indicates their success in such matters as bringing
about local infrastructural improvements but points out their limitations as commercially viable enterprises. Over half of the CDCs had not been able to make
their activities self-supporting and are dependent on recurrent government aid.
384 Alan Matthews
8.
Conclusion
What can be said about the state of rural development research in Ireland on the
basis of this survey? A review article tends to suggest a common framework of
inquiry for studies which are quite diverse in their origins, research focus,
methodology and assumptions so that generalisations are unlikely to be sustained. Nonetheless, the temptation to risk a concluding one is strong. It does
seem to this writer that we may be on the threshold of a shift in thinking about
the causes of Irish rural development problems. Until now, the literature has
tended to blame rural disadvantage on unfavourable resource endowments,
deficiencies in entrepreneurship, inadequate infrastructure, weak administrative
structures and other 'obstacles' to development. Rural development strategy has
been seen as the process of removing these obstacles to development within rural
areas themselves. This approach is increasingly challenged by a perspective which
explains existing disadvantages as being the outcome of social processes which
operate within the context of a wider socioeconomic structure (Conway and
O'Hara, 1984). Overcoming rural disadvantage will not be effected by piecemeal interventions, but will require a more comprehensive and holistic approach.
The notion of 'integrated rural development' has become increasingly popular.
The challenge for Irish rural economists will be to provide a fuller understanding
of these processes as the basis for operational strategies of rural development.
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Downloaded from http://erae.oxfordjournals.org/ at Penn State University (Paterno Lib) on September 16, 2016
Alan Matthews
Department of Economics
University of Dublin
Trinity College
Dublin 2
Ireland