How dominant can Dublin become or more to the point, how much can we tilt the scales so that regional centres can have some ability to attract investment and facilities for people living outside of the metropolitan area?

Granted Galway, Cork and Limerick are developing cities but listening to Martin Shannon, the chief executive of the IDA, point with pride the other morning that less than 50% of new investment was coming to the Dublin area, which is fine, but that means that the rest of the entire country has to do with the half that doesn’t go to Dublin.

Internationally, this may be not that unusual – Paris, London and Madrid are all increasingly dominant in their individual countries but that doesn’t mean that an effort should not be made to at least ensure that rural areas have access on the most equal terms possible to modern, essential services. Over the last few months, a number of examples stand out but, first, let’s put things in context. Electricity is the key example. The decision to roll out a national electrification programme at central expense and with no price penalty imposed on farmers and consumers living far outside the main urban centres set an example in far less prosperous times. We do not see the same commitment to national territorial equality in recent developments.

Access to broadband services is a recent example where a major player was let disrupt national plans for a coherent national roll-out by cherry-picking some key, highly profitable areas, while the rest of the country was essentially left to sink or swim. What surprised me was that the Government was powerless to intervene.

The same has happened with the postal service, which used be a national institution charging the same for a letter to be delivered regardless of where it was posted. Just recently, we have seen a Dublin-based company offer a postal service at the old 78c rate while the general cost of a stamp went up to €1. The question of where Government and its regulatory system should step in is not an easy answer.

Theoretically, we have seen it work well in telecoms but, in fact, mobile coverage in many rural areas is very poor. Nobody should suggest we go back to the statutory monopolies in transport or phones but neither should the Government stand back and let rural areas become increasingly removed from access to modern facilities that allow families to earn a living and make it attractive for young adults to settle outside the main urban centres.