Population growth should be diverted to rest of country, Coveney says

The growth of Dublin will continue to overshadow the rest of the country, with increased urban sprawl, longer commutes, more traffic jams and higher living costs in the capital unless population growth is diverted elsewhere, officials have warned.

A briefing paper from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government also says that “hard choices” will be necessary to ensure that services are located where they can reach most people.

“If it is accepted that the same level of growth can’t occur everywhere, some degree of prioritisation and possibly some hard choices may be necessary,” states the paper on Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government Simon Coveney’s national planning framework.

Mr Coveney says the framework, a draft of which will be published in the new year, will likely contain targets for population growth over the next 25 years in places such as Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. He said the national population will grow by more than a million in that time.

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The past 20 years also saw the population grow by one million, he said, but bad planning mean that developments were "doughnuted" around Dublin in commuter towns such as Naas, Kilcock, Navan and Dunshaughlin.

Limited growth

The paper prepared by department officials says that unless new plans are put in place, other cities and larger towns will see much more limited growth. This, in turn, will lead to stagnation and the decline of smaller towns and rural areas.

Inner city areas will also decline due to further moves to the suburbs, and Mr Coveney says there would be more derelict buildings in city centres. Overall, the paper argues that a “long-term shift in population and economic activity will continue towards the east of Ireland”.

With an overheating Dublin, people and companies might choose to relocate abroad or not move to Ireland in such a scenario.

“Dublin has tended to compete with other mid-size or large European cities on behalf of Ireland as a whole, rather than with cities such as Cork or Limerick,” the paper adds. “However, Dublin now runs the risk of overheating at a time when there are significant economic opportunities arising as a result of Brexit, which could benefit the city and indeed other parts of Ireland.

“The availability of housing, transport, water and other services in the capital are all problematic to some extent, and could undermine the attractiveness and viability of relocating there.”

Mr Coveney said Dublin will always have its attractions as a capital city, and preparations must be made for some further growth.

He added, however: “We need to be proactively driving populations to other parts of the country by providing jobs for them, by providing infrastructure in terms of healthcare, education, in terms of recreational amenity.”

Other initiatives

Mr Coveney said the new strategy will work alongside other Government initiatives, such as actions plans on jobs, housing, education and rural Ireland. It will also allow for greater planning in allocating funding for capital projects.

The Minister said he intends to tour the country hosting meetings on his plan. He said he wants to change the measure of how to spend money in constituencies from a traditional view that it should be spent on roads, for example.

“I’m going to say: hang on a second,” he said. “Wouldn’t you better off spending a couple of hundred million building a tourism infrastructure, or a sporting infrastructure or a cultural centre?

“Different counties and different parts of Ireland will hopefully have a different vision for what they want. We need to try and see if we can accommodate that in the bigger picture.”