Celtic Tiger years widened the divide between Limerick city's rich and poor
THE SHARP economic divisions in Limerick city were even deeper in 2006 than they were before the boom, a new report by a professor at Mary Immaculate College has revealed.
Rather than improving in the boom years, the disadvantage experienced by thousands of people in Limerick's regeneration areas actually got worse overall, statistics in the report have indicated.
Entitled Facing the Challenge of Change, A Spatial Perspective on Limerick, Professor Des McCafferty said the report presents a snapshot of the city close to the high-water mark of the Celtic Tiger and before the initiation of the regeneration programme.
"It (Limerick] is quite sharply divided. There is no doubt about that. It's most remarkable that within the confines of a small city there is a sharp variation. We have areas on the one hand that are extremely disadvantaged in national terms and then areas that are very affluent in national terms, and they are very close by each other," Prof McCafferty told www.limerickleader.ie.
"This can be a feature of all cities, but mostly big cities. In the case of Limerick, it's maybe a bit surprising that you've got such a contrast in a relatively small city. These contrasts are there, and they are quite entrenched. They have been there for a long time," he said.
Prof McCafferty said it is hard to determine if Limerick of 2010 now is more deeply divided than ever before. "We will have to wait until we get the date for the 2011 census. It's going to be very interesting. Unemployment has risen in some of the areas that are more vulnerable," he said.
Dr Brendan O'Keeffe, Mary Immaculate College, who was also present at a presentation of the report in City Hall, noted that Limerick has one of the lowest levels of volunteerism in the State. "We need to foster community development," he said.
Unemployment in the city was on the rise long before the boom officially went bust, with the city's population lagging behind in the skills level nationally.
"If you look carefully you can actually see the seeds of the downturn, even before 2006. After 2002 you begin to see that things (in the economy] are based on shakier kinds of grounds. Areas like Moyross and Southill that improved in the first part of the boom period began to fall back again," said Prof McCafferty.
The North Circular Road area is identified as the most affluent area in the city, followed by affluent areas such as Castletroy, Raheen, Mungret, the South Circular Road, Westbury, Caherdavin and Parteen.
Patterns of affluence were also in line with the percentage of the adult population with third level education, and households which have a highest usage of broadband. By stark contrast, Moyross, Southill, Ballinacurra Weston and Prospect were noted as being "extremely disadvantaged" and rather than improving over a 10-year period, they actually disimproved, according to the year-long study.
The labour force in regeneration areas in both the north and southsides of the city "actually contracted", he said.
"When you see it on a map like that it really drives it home to you," he said. "Limerick may have advanced, but relative to the rest of the country almost all of the city has declined."
Yet, he said: "there is a lot of potential in this region", but "we need to eliminate competition between the city and surrounding areas. It's a collaboration."
Among the major issues affecting Limerick's advancement are growing relative deprivation, higher than average housing vacancy rates, population levels reliant on in-migration, and a dependence on the old world economy.
Prof McCafferty said by 2006 the city was already over-supplied with housing, a lot of which was policy induced, due to tax breaks given to developers. "Now we're paying the price of that," he added.
Covering a 10-year period up to 2006, the study shows that in that period the population change of suburban Limerick increased by 46.4 per cent, a representing 94.5 per cent share of the overall growth.
In the city, there was a 50 per cent vacancy rate of housing, especially in the Catherine Street and Parnell Street areas, according to the 2006 census.
The number of non Irish nationals trebled in some areas, and quadrupled in one electoral district, with 10,000 non Irish nationals living here in 2006.
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