Ireland North West Infrastructure crisis compared to Latin America

People are complaining about infrastructure and public services all over Ireland.

Yet in the Midlands-North-West region, things are far worse than in the rest of the country and the European Commission (EC) produced some rankings, the Regional Competitive Index, that appears to confirm what people are saying in the street.

During the European campaigns in May 2024, people frequently mentioned that the region was scraping the bottom of the barrel on one particular metric for infrastructure. I wanted to know where this figure comes from and what it really means.

The EC produced a rather large table with multiple metrics for each region. The data set is called the EU Regional Competitiveness Index 2.0 - 2022 edition. There is a web site where people can visualize some of the data.

The interactive charts are nice but to really understand the data it is helpful to load it into a spreadsheet so we can look at the region names and numbers side-by-side.

Further down the page there is a list of documents to download. One of those documents is a spreadsheet with the data, this is not the one we want but it is useful nonetheless. The title is RCI 2.0 - Raw data 2022, revised. ( backup copy of the data).

The document of interest is the spreadsheet RCI 2.0 - scores 2022 edition and back-calculations for 2019 and 2016 editions, revised. This takes the raw data values and combines them into scores for each region and each category. ( backup copy of the data).

The metric that has been mentioned so widely during the election campaigns is in column I, the "Infrastructure Pillar". We can highlight the entire table and sort (Descending order) on the Infrastructure Pillar to see where Ireland North West really appears in the table.

Looking at the table like this gives us some insights that we could not get from the interactive mapping tool. I'll elaborate below, but lets begin by looking at the table.

	A	B	C	D	I
1	REGION NAME	NUTS code	Stage of development	Rank	Infrastructure Pillar
2	Ile-de-France	FR10	MD	3	185.8
3	Utrecht	NL31	MD	1	171.6
4	Noord-Brabant	NL41	MD	4	168.3
5	Zuid-Holland	NL33	MD	2	160.9
6	Antwerpen	BE21	MD	11	160.4
7	Gelderland	NL22	MD	9	159.7
8	Darmstadt	DE71	MD	18	155.7
9	Comunidad de Madrid	ES30	MD	36	154.3
10	Amsterdam and its commuting zone	NL_C	MD	4	153.6
11	Cataluña	ES51	MD	108	152.4
12	Karlsruhe	DE12	MD	19	150.5
13	Liège	BE33	TR	59	150.1
14	Köln	DEA2	MD	17	149.0
15	Düsseldorf	DEA1	MD	16	148.9
16	Rheinhessen-Pfalz	DEB3	MD	27	147.2
17	Brussels and its commuting zone	BE_C	MD	8	145.1
18	Limburg (NL)	NL42	MD	13	145.0
19	Oberbayern	DE21	MD	15	144.9
20	Picardie	FRE2	TR	107	144.1
	[ rows deleted ]
165	Kentriki Makedonia	EL52	LD	199	61.3
166	Sardegna	ITG2	LD	203	61.3
167	Basse-Normandie	FRD1	TR	125	60.9
168	Mazowiecki regionalny	PL92	LD	177	60.5
169	Ciudad de Melilla	ES64	LD	194	60.5
170	Severovýchod	CZ05	TR	123	60.1
171	Jihozápad	CZ03	TR	131	59.8
172	Länsi-Suomi	FI19	TR	56	58.9
173	Kujawsko-pomorskie	PL61	LD	171	58.9
174	Thessalia	EL61	LD	208	58.6
175	Opolskie	PL52	LD	167	58.1
176	Região Autónoma da Madeira	PT30	LD	182	57.6
177	Umbria	ITI2	TR	163	57.3
178	Kärnten	AT21	MD	91	57.0
179	Övre Norrland	SE33	MD	75	56.7
180	Valle d’Aosta/Vallée d’Aoste	ITC2	MD	175	56.6
181	Lubuskie	PL43	LD	171	56.5
182	Limousin	FRI2	TR	116	56.2
183	Małopolskie	PL21	LD	127	55.9
184	Voreio Aigaio	EL41	LD	217	55.2
185	Západné Slovensko	SK02	LD	164	54.5
186	Peloponnisos	EL65	LD	215	53.5
187	La Réunion	FRY4	LD	183	53.3
188	Região Autónoma dos Açores	PT20	LD	206	53.3
189	Warmińsko-mazurskie	PL62	LD	188	52.6
190	Corse	FRM0	TR	184	52.0
191	Podlaskie	PL84	LD	181	51.8
192	Sterea Elláda	EL64	LD	228	51.8
193	Martinique	FRY2	LD	149	51.2
194	Southern	IE05	MD	94	50.7
195	Jadranska Hrvatska	HR03	LD	186	50.7
196	Dél-Alföld	HU33	LD	192	50.4
197	Észak-Alföld	HU32	LD	202	48.9
198	Guadeloupe	FRY1	LD	188	48.5
199	Vidurio ir vakarų Lietuvos regionas	LT02	LD	151	48.0
200	Ionia Nisia	EL62	LD	218	47.3
201	Sud-Muntenia	RO31	LD	230	46.8
202	Észak-Magyarország	HU31	LD	207	46.3
203	Notio Aigaio	EL42	LD	224	45.8
204	Podkarpackie	PL82	LD	169	45.1
205	Ciudad de Ceuta	ES63	LD	211	44.7
206	Pohjois- ja Itä-Suomi	FI1D	TR	84	44.6
207	Yugoiztochen	BG34	LD	227	44.2
208	Dytiki Elláda	EL63	LD	220	44.0
209	Panonska Hrvatska	HR02	LD	195	41.5
210	Mayotte	FRY5	LD	205	41.1
211	Molise	ITF2	LD	197	40.2
212	Basilicata	ITF5	LD	201	39.9
213	Lubelskie	PL81	LD	180	37.9
214	Kriti	EL43	LD	209	37.5
215	Prov. Autonoma di Trento	ITH2	MD	141	36.5
216	Sud-Est	RO22	LD	234	36.0
217	Dél-Dunántúl	HU23	LD	197	35.1
218	Prov. Autonoma di Bolzano/Bozen	ITH1	MD	160	34.8
219	Northern and Western	IE04	TR	114	34.1
220	Anatoliki Makedonia, Thraki	EL51	LD	225	34.0
221	Vest	RO42	LD	223	33.5
222	Východné Slovensko	SK04	LD	193	32.6
223	Severoiztochen	BG33	LD	221	32.5
224	Nord-Est	RO21	LD	233	31.8
225	Åland	FI20	MD	106	30.0
226	Świętokrzyskie	PL72	LD	187	30.0
227	Severen tsentralen	BG32	LD	212	28.0
228	Guyane	FRY3	LD	210	27.0
229	Stredné Slovensko	SK03	LD	176	26.9
230	Sud-Vest Oltenia	RO41	LD	231	26.7
231	Centru	RO12	LD	229	24.8
232	Dytiki Makedonia	EL53	LD	216	22.9
233	Nord-Vest	RO11	LD	226	21.7
234	Severozapaden	BG31	LD	232	19.8
235	Ipeiros	EL54	LD	213	19.5

The numbers in the left column are the row numbers from the spreadsheet so they are off by one. We can see Ireland "Northern and Western" is at row number 219 very close to the bottom of the spreadsheet.

The first two letters of the NUTS code tells us the country. We can see most of the regions at the bottom of the list are the rural areas of eastern European countries like Romania (RO) and Bulgaria (BG). Many people left those countries to come and work in Dublin under the Freedom of Movement system.

The scores were calculated in 2022. The following year, on 28 February 2023, there was a notorious train crash in the Tempe Valley of Thessaly, Greece on the opposite side of the EU from Ireland.

When the infrastructure scores were calculated in Brussels, Thessaly was placed above Ireland North West. We can see Thessalia at row number 174 in the table. It has a score of 58.6. The score for Ireland North West is even lower, just 34.1.

After the Greek train crash, there was a lot of debate about the poor quality of infrastructure in their region. Should residents of Ireland's north and west be concerned?

Surely it couldn't get any worse? What does worse look like after all?

This is where it was much more useful to look at the table instead of using the interactive charts and maps on the web site. When I opened the table, I immediately saw the name "Guyane" just below Ireland. Guyane is an administrative region of France but it is actually located in South America. The only reason it is included in the table at all is because it is controlled by an EU country, France. So the table is telling us that Ireland North West is comparable to a South American country. French Guiana has a score of 27.0. So Ireland North West is a lot closer to French Guiana than it is to Thessaly.

According to the Wikipedia page for French Guiana, forty one percent of the country is part of the Amazon rainforest anyway. In other words, it is closer to Paddington Bear (trailer) than Paddington railway station.

 

Sadly, there was no Celtic Tiger for the north and west. However, there is a list of carnivorous mammals in French Guiana that includes Cougars and Jaguars.

 

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