TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

FUTURE SCENARIOS FOR SLIGO
SCENARIO 1: An Irish Clone (National scenario: THE SOW OF LIBERTY)
Sligo flourishes in 2030 as the corporate agenda has well and truly swept across the County.
Over the last two decades Sligo has promoted itself as a competitive and congenial city for long-
term investment. The opening of the Sligo relief road back in 2005 served as a major catalyst for
growth in Sligo and the northwest and Sligo’s positioning between Galway and Donegal has
encouraged creative industrial clusters along the West coast. With balanced regional
development in the northwest as the economic and political imperative, major investment in
the National Transport Corridor, funded through PPP’s and the European Regional Development
Fund, marked the decade between 2007 and 2017. A series of upgrades to national and primary
routes facilitated the expansion of Sligo, particularly southward to parts of Mayo and
Roscommon, via the N17 and N4, and north to Donegal, via the N15. Improvements to the N16
enhanced connections to Enniskillen and the Trans-European Network cross-border route
improved links to Belfast and Northern Ireland.
While Sligo IT has been an integral part of regional growth and development, sustained growth
depended on further expansion. 2017 witnessed substantial investment in Sligo IT enabling a
greater response to emerging needs of Ireland. In particular a major revamp of the Science
faculty was completed, offering a greater number of courses to students wishing to excel in the
science and technology sector. The movement away from labour-intensive manufacturing
industries to the skilled service sector had significant policy implications for the provision of
infrastructure, particularly the provision of telecommunications. In 2020 Mavericks Technology
in collaboration with Sligo IT embarked on a bold 5-year project, to engage in a far-reaching,
forward-looking alliance to create the future of nano-technology.
The alliance set a new standard for industrial-academic partnerships in the region, with many
SME’s joining forces to engage in knowledge transfer between the sectors and to ensure that
experts have closer involvement with the local and regional economy. By 2030, two centres of
excellence are up and running, further strengthening the region’s R& D capabilities. With a
combination of home grown manufacturing, retail and service industries on the one hand,
balanced with state of the art educational facilities on the other, Sligo by 2030 is breeding the
intellectual property and entrepreneurial fair needed to drive the vibrant economy of a modern
city region.
But not everyone is entirely satisfied with Sligo’s transformation with many fearing that the
acceptance of big business in the region is merely serving to erode cultural identity. In an
interview for the Sligo Business Post, one Sligo citizen voiced his concerns about Sligo’s future.
‘We are in danger of becoming just another clone of the many towns and cities throughout
Ireland. It is unfortunate that our local mayor is little more than a front man for big business - a
corrupt power junkie with no respect for the land or its people’. The unquestioned development
of Sligo as gateway capital of the North-West region is in danger of wiping out what that
inherent ‘something’ that gave Sligo it’s beauty.
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