TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

In the context of health, it is unwise to fall ill in the Ireland of 2030 unless you carry good
private health insurance. Facilities for the un-insured are available but are invariably
understaffed and poorly equipped. Generally, while the Irish are living longer, there is much
greater dependency on drugs, therapy and replacement surgery. A number of small private
‘state of the art’ clinics located in the West coupled with the natural beauty and cultural
attractions draw rich retirees mainly from Europe to settle down in the vibrant towns and
villages of the West.
Notwithstanding that the arts and culture have largely been commercialised, there still exist
pockets where the traditional Irish way-of-life survives, albeit as a tourist attraction in its own
way. Mainly to be found in small towns and villages in the northwest and southwest, and
designated as heritage zones, comparatively large concentrations of musicians, artists, actors,
dancers, singers and writers keep the old customs such as sean-nós singing and céilí alive.
The creed of individualism, coupled with a sharp divide between the have’s and have not’s,
have led to a rise in crime of quite alarming proportions over the past 15 years. There are
parts of Dublin, Cork and Limerick where the guards frankly admit they have no real authority.
Furthermore, organised crime of international dimensions finds a relatively safe haven for
conducting its global operations in permissive and libertarian Ireland.
Additionally, while Irish leaders are proud of boasting that in this new liberalised, meritocratic
society anyone can get to the top who is good enough, an Internet poll recently revealed that
80% of the workforce suffer regularly from stress-related illness, and only 16% are optimistic
about the future. On top of this, there is still a core 6% of the population who are unemployed –
and in the eyes of many, unemployable. But there is little room for technophobes in this
society. In this ruthless, electronically driven market economy anyone who cannot keep-up with
technological advance is likely to be thrown on the scrapheap. Intolerance and even contempt
towards such marginalized people makes it politically feasible to keep social welfare low.
Places
Over the last 25 years, the seeds of a large urban metropolis that at the time was the Dublin –
Belfast corridor has grown into a huge polycentric city region, often called the Eastern
Conurbation, which stretches from Belfast and Armagh to Waterford and is home to 70% of
Ireland’s population. The region is a dense weave of intensive and highly profitable agriculture,
based on GM foods and feeding the functional food research; services and very large-scale
industries, such as IT, bio- and nano-technology. Dublin’s role as centre of gravity was replaced
by a gravitation towards ‘plug-in’ connection to the corridor – dramatically reducing perceived
peripherality of many midland and Western areas.
The Eastern Conurbation developed as the market forces coupled with demographics led to
the establishment of the critical mass necessary for an urban agglomeration of sufficient scale
to be able to compete as a European city region. The scale of internal markets for goods and
services supported the emergence of domestic innovation which resulted in the establishment of
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