THAT CO Laois has emerged in the census as having the highest population growth in the country – at 20 per cent over the last five years – is no surprise to local politicians and business people.
“In Portlaoise and Portarlington there has been a huge influx of people from Dublin and other parts of the country,” said Laois county councillor Mary Sweeney (FG).
“We knew it was phenomenal because we are really stretched in terms of services and schools.”
Employment remains an issue in Portlaoise where Sweeney said “industrial and manufacturing units have moved out of the town”.
However, the council was working hard to attract businesses and promote tourism in the area where the hospital, two prisons and the local authority remain the chief employers.
The majority of buyers walking through the doors of Hume Auctioneers in Portlaoise in the last few years were from Dublin, according to proprietor John Dunne. There were also “a lot of Polish buyers as well, and some other eastern European buyers,” he said.
Highlighting Laois’s attractions for commuters to Dublin, he said: “We have a train station in the middle of the town, we have the M7/M8 a half a mile from the Main Street . . . We had a lot of zoned land when nobody else had.” With so many people relocating to the county, their parents also purchased in order to have a base close to them.
Dunne said good value properties were still selling. “I have two-bedroom apartments at €80,000 and I have sold 30 in seven weeks.” At the height of the boom those properties were priced at €247,000.
Chairman of Laois GAA’s coaching and games development committee Peter O’Neill agreed that “the main increase would be people from Dublin”.
In towns along the train line such as Portarlington and Portlaoise the population rise was “colossal”. During better times “you could have sold a house in Tallaght for €400,000 and bought one here for €250,000”.
Portlaoise has also become a home to many new Irish. “There is a very big Polish community,” O’Neill said. “We had two Czech weddings in the club and nearly every month we have a Czech night for between 150 and 200 people.”
The town also boasts a Vietnamese soccer team, he said, adding that the GAA was trying to attract members of all nationalities in the area. “If they hadn’t got the increase from immigration the clubs wouldn’t be able to function . . . every club, I think, including ourselves, has been hit with emigration.” While immigration has been beneficial to clubs in larger towns, rural clubs are suffering from emigration, said O’Neill.
Paddy Earley of Earley Estates Auctioneers in Portarlington doesn’t expect to see the boom back soon. “Portarlington was a commutable town to Newbridge, Kildare, the capital and Portlaoise. The three-lane upgrade of the M7 helped hugely and there was in excess of 20 trains a day.” The new Irish were a driver of property “to a certain degree. Yes, they were driving it more on the rental side,” Earley said.
“What is selling? There are sales where there is perceived value.”