When John Moran decided to resign as head of the Department of Finance in May 2014 such was the impact that the department’s website collapsed. An unlikely public servant, just three years earlier he’d been headhunted to successfully steer the country out of an unholy economic and banking mess.

He came to the department having worked with many of the world’s top companies as well as running two juice bars in the south of France during a career break. Now based in his native Limerick, (he hails from a farm in Mungret and is a cousin of Tom Moran of the Red Cow Hotel) John has his hands full with a variety of projects for clients and as chair of the Land Development Agency, SME Recovery Ireland, the Hunt Museum and Liveable Limerick.

No stranger to big decisions John has interesting thoughts on the impact of COVID-19, especially when it comes to the regions.

“The thing about COVID-19 is that this crisis is hitting different sectors and age groups very unevenly. It is hard to be sure how to respond to a crisis that has such unequal impacts both on health and the economy,” says John.

“We can see the first order impacts more clearly – closed pubs and more people working from home. That’s the easier part. But what will the second and third order impacts look like? For example, does working from home, shopping locally and less travel present a golden opportunity to grow the regions, spend more time with family and reduce car dependency? “How do we craft opportunity out of challenges?” he asks.

Time of opportunity

“Post-COVID-19, the opportunity for towns and cities across Ireland is to respond to the lifestyle changes happening now. To gauge the quality of what they have on offer it helps to look at their assets to attract three distinct groups of people to live there. Well-managed population growth can underpin the development of the regions,” John continues.

“Historically, with a national population of over three million we typically put all big services in Dublin – National Maternity Hospital, All-Irelands in Croke Park and 80% of container traffic in Dublin Port and Dublin Airport. We continued that as we grew towards a population of five million. But this can’t – and should not – continue as our population grows by another million,” he explains.

“Services like health, transport, education, innovation parks and the arts need to be better distributed so that Waterford, Cork, Limerick and Galway can, working together stand shoulder to shoulder with Dublin. It should not be a compromise to live in that city cluster when it comes to levels of public services.

“To nudge this along local regions have more to do to define their areas as desirable places to live. It’s not just a focus on foreign direct investment (FDI) and tourism but making your region liveable and affordable for all.

“What COVID-19 has done is shown it is more feasible to consider alternatives to the capital.”

Who to convince

“The first and easiest group to convince to move are those with traditional links to another area.

“By moving they are nearer family support and friends. Mortgage payments are much reduced. Instead of working five days a week in a Dublin office with a long commute they might need to only go for one or two days.

“Could working mostly from home mean cutting out the expense of two cars (or even one)? How can regional counties change to practically make that work better?

“Success will have come when the second group – people from Dublin themselves – also want to move to the mid-west, south or northwest and see the advantages in doing so.

Then for the third group – newcomers with no links to any part of the country – they can settle in those regions recognised internationally to have enhanced liveability at affordable costs,” he says.

COVID-19 might be an enabler but local authorities in the regions also need to do more. It will not land in their laps.

Over-egged assumptions

Some assumptions about the brave new post-COVID-19 world were over-egged, says John Moran:

“I do not believe that working in office teams is over. The initial assumption was that from now on you’d just go to the office to pick up assignments once a week. But many work teams were already established when COVID-19 hit. People knew each other, knew how each other worked and knew how to have a bit of a laugh together. Solving problems on a Zoom call with someone you already know is much easier than talking to strangers.

“Those who say office spaces are no longer needed miss the point that people still need to collaborate and for that some physical presence is desirable. Maybe larger companies move to dispersed satellite offices, though,” he says.

“Employers with traditional approaches to work have come to realise people home working can be just as productive, if not more, than when they had to come daily to the office. Better balancing of non-work commitments and cost of living issues makes for more attractive working lives.”

SME sector needs more help

John Moran says COVID-19 has hit everyone – whether mentally, physically or financially. It’s been a shock like few we have seen. But to maintain social cohesion, it is key we feel that the pain is equally distributed. We must be more generous and more targeted with support for those who suffered most and as a corollary ask those who haven’t suffered at all to help pay for that.

As chair of SME Recovery Ireland he has encouraged government to borrow more to alleviate the economic pain of COVID-19. This money can stimulate economic activity by giving it to people who need it but who will spend it, not squirrel it away.

Small to medium businesses could have been a target for greater aid. We can easily forget the hit to their savings caused when we asked them to close for our safety.

If safety demanded we not open rural pubs then surely we should have had a compensation scheme for them to protect the local economy but also its social fabric.

Small businesses told us that when their new bills will be paid, on average their bank balances are -€150,000 on where they were in February. Smaller businesses just cannot afford that on their own. And we must move quickly. You cannot back date a rescue package once a company has gone bust.

On the health side, he says we were generous to those people who fell ill. “We didn’t chase them with medical bills but paid for their care. How then, can we leave pubs and others suffering and yet see a 2% pay rise to public servants? How will that foster a strong sense of social cohesion?”

Personal insights

“We’ve seen that supporting local and shopping local really matters too. Interestingly, while retail is in crisis, COVID-19 has proven that shops in towns are doing better than expected as people are no longer travelling to work. This is the model for the future. People living in towns within walking distance of shops,” says John.

“It is also great to see some businesses have used COVID-19 as a trigger to embrace technology.

“On a personal basis, COVID-19 has reaffirmed my decision of a couple of years ago to move back to Limerick’s city centre. At the time I worried it was a risky career move but it’s worked so well especially through the last few months. The crisis also reinforced for me the importance of family and friends and that connectivity was a great help in getting through it all.”

Mindset change

“One worry I have is that our aging population has been hit hard by COVID-19 especially those living alone in isolated homes. We now see how it might have been easier for them if they were living in the local village or small town, closer to services and friends? It is time to re-imagine vacant village houses for this population and for young families. Like moving from Dublin, this may require a shift in thinking but COVID-19 should be the catalyst,” says John.