WE POPULATE a world constructed of figures and statistics, in which the lived experience of human beings is of finishing value. It is no longer possible to "know" anything other than by reference to the available data. To say what you feel is to risk almost certain contradiction, refutation and rejection of your contribution, on the grounds that it is at odds with the statistics.
In the first few days of the new year, we again heard criticism of what is rather loosely called national development policy as it comes to bear on the west of Ireland. The IDA claimed the number of IDA assisted jobs in the west is rising faster than the national average. Mr Seamus Caulfield, a member of the Council for the West, said that, on the contrary, the IDA's list of new projects last year showed an unacceptable bias in favour of Dublin. The chief executive of the IDA rejected such a notion.
We have been down this road before. Year after year we discuss the state of the west of Ireland as though it were an appropriate subject for controversy, as though it were possible to be in doubt about what has been happening there.
As a matter of fact, there is no shortage of reports and statistics which confirm what most of us must know in our bones. Just before Christmas, for example, The Irish Times published, in conjunction with a report on the publication of the Combat Poverty Agency's Poverty in Rural Ireland, an exceedingly striking graphic illustrating the concentration of poverty in the west, northwest and Border areas of this State.
This map might have seemed to make further argument superfluous. The most affluent areas were shaded in dark blue, the most disadvantaged in red, with intermediary states being depicted by pink, green and light blue. The map revealed a stark division, on either side of an imaginary line drawn between Belfast and Limerick. South and east of that line was a sea of blues and green, with just the occasional patch of red or pink. The other side of it was dominated by red, growing in intensity as the eye moved north or west.
THE MAP simply depicted what anyone with an appetite for the truth has known for some time. It is not necessary to examine annual report of the IDA, or another report, to know that the west of Ireland is in pretty poor economic shape. This is so manifestly the case that almost everyone who knows anything about it has grown tired of saying it.
Yet, time and again, when somebody manages to transcend their boredom and frustration and repeat the blitheringly obvious, some economist, commentator or statistician comes up Wilha set of figures purporting to contradict what has been said.
How is it possible, if something is so starkly irrefutable as the neglect of the west of Ireland, to come up with figures which appear to show the opposite? The answer is simple: such statistics are compiled on a per head of population basis. And since the chief problem of the west of Ireland has long been depopulation arising from abuse and neglect, it follows - does it not? - that the west of Ireland suffers from having a disproportionately small population. It is therefore deemed to be entitled to less and less of the things that might help its population to stop diminishing.
Now, one either thinks this is a problem or one thinks it quite normal and acceptable. (I believe it to be a very great problem, not just for the west of Ireland but for the State as a whole, since the overpopulation of the eastern region, which is inextricably bound up with the depopulation of the west, is creating a social nightmare of a different but no less ominous nature to the social nightmare of the west.) One thing is sure: it is not, I would contend, possible to believe, at the same time, that this is a problem and that it is normal.
IS IT not therefore perverse to insist on applying to the west of Ireland statistical comparisons which accept the consequences of its sorry history as though they were perfectly normal? For this is what we do when we consider our treatment of the west of Ireland on the basis of per head of population statistics. Population is what the west of Ireland lacks, so policy based on such calculations is bound to ensure that, at the very most, the population of the west remains the same.
And if such policies are pursued at a time of alleged economic growth, is it not reasonable to presume that the consequences of policies pursued in times of recession will lead to even further reductions of the west's population? In fact, it is not necessary to presume anything of the kind, since recent experience shows us this is precisely what occurs.
To base our understanding of how we are dealing with the spread of development on per head of population statistics is, given the historical context, tantamount to accepting that our present demographic travesty is irreversible, if not actually virtuous.
A fruit barrow opening in Carrick on Shannon is, more or less, the statistical equivalent of General Motors moving its entire operation to Dublin. It is possible, on paper, to equate one with the other, to show that together the two events amount to proportionality of development. But to build a future on such logic is to ensure that Leitrim will continue to lose population and Dublin will continue to gain it. Only reverse discrimination would change this significantly.
So, yes, when we are told that the spread of development is perfectly even, in statistical terms, we are being told a form of the truth. But, in terms of what this is likely to be understood to mean, we are being dangerously misled.
I should, perhaps, say that I do not approve of the present form of IDA sponsored development on any grounds whatever. I believe the long standing policy of attracting outside investors to set up industries here which, in general, do not integrate with local economies and do nothing to help self start a corresponding indigenous sector, is mistaken. But this is a personal opinion, and since the IDA model is virtually the only form of development available, we have to deal with this reality.
One thing is certain: if we are at all serious about redressing the social consequences of the unevenness of opportunity and resources in this society, we must ensure that the benefits of this development, however imperfect, are allowed to circulate throughout the society, undoing the damage of centuries of abuse and neglect.
It is true, as Fintan O'Toole wrote a couple of weeks ago, that perceiving poverty in regional terms allows us to see only a dimension of the problem. Economic development should not be treated as though it were the All Ireland championship. But while the issue of evenness of economic development should certainly transcend chauvinism and parochialism, it is damaging, too, to allow the pattern of development to follow the path of least resistance created by the demographic drift which resulted from previous mistakes.