The purpose of this essay is to ask, when Ireland began to industrialise in the 1960s and the 1970s why it mainly occurred in the west. This essay will discuss postcolonial Ireland (1920s-1960s). It will define rural fundamentalism and how it informed social and economic policies in Ireland, it will focus on how poverty, emigration and unemployment and how it played a key role in the eclipsing of the communities of rural Ireland This essay will discuss how the opening up of the economy and the shift in ideologies was essential to the survival of the nation. Moving on it will discuss the International Development Authority (IDA) and its role it had in promoting industrialisation in the west. It will give an explanation as to why the …show more content…

By 1950 the rural 3

communities like Inishkillane had decided to look to alternative dwellings away from the parish they knew and with this the population began to experience serious imbalances (ibid, 1973). According to Daly (2006), “ Fianna Fail Minister Frank Aiken believed that Agriculture had the potential to create and preserve jobs on small western farms however these schemes proved to be a spectacular failure” (p.39). Due to social and economic failures the Irish state had a locational policy put in place to promote industrial employment into rural Ireland. (Slater 2011:3)

The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) was set up in 1949 and introduced a scheme of grant incentives to encourage firms, primarily foreign firms to establish plants in the under-developed area’s of the west of Ireland (Wickham 1980). According to Slater (2011), a major objective of having a locational policy was to try and bring as many jobs into the west of Ireland to help with the displacement of the population. The IDA”s incentives are based on a combination of tax reliefs and grants. Up to recently the corporation for multinational firms was 10% it was increased to 12.5 % in 2003. Tax can be written off against the cost of machinery, material and plant hire. It also can be written off against buildings. Development, training and research grants are also available however these grants are variable depending what region you are in. Designated areas get the