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.

Paddington bear

 

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.

 

Cougar, French Guiana

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