We are sleepwalking our way towards a deeply dysfunctional, inequitable and unbalanced Ireland

We are sleepwalking our way towards a deeply dysfunctional, inequitable and unbalanced Ireland, where Dublin dominates the rest of the country as a de facto city state. In Irish regional planning parlance, this is called “business as usual” – something successive governments have repeatedly pledged to overcome. Yet it is all happening, inexorably, in developments on the ground.

As the Department of Housing itself has acknowledged, Census 2022 showed that the distribution of growth over the previous six years was “significantly weighted in favour of the east, with consistently more than half of population growth in the eastern and midlands region during that time”, compared with the northern and western region and the southern region – an admission of policy failure.

The Government’s 2018 National Planning Framework (NPF) anticipated having to accommodate one million more people in the State in 2040, and specifically set out to “shift the spatial pattern of development in Ireland towards more regionally balanced, city focused and compact growth”, split “roughly 50:50″ between the eastern and midlands region and the rest.

That aspirational pillar, in all of its aspects, has been demolished by the findings of last year’s census. Not only does the eastern and midlands region contain nearly half (49.4 per cent) of the overall population, but its rate of growth since 2016 (at 8.6 per cent) significantly exceeds those of the two less favoured regions – 6.8 per cent for the southern region and 6.3 per cent for the northern and western region.

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The latest CSO data released this week shows that the top five towns in the State with populations over 30,000 — Drogheda, Dundalk, Swords, Navan and Bray — are all within Dublin’s orbit. Eight of the 10 towns with the youngest average age are either in Dublin or surrounding counties. Dublin is also the most cosmopolitan place in Ireland, with the highest proportion (25 per cent) of residents who were born abroad.

Even this disparity doesn’t reveal the true extent of Dublin’s dominance. The arbitrary three-region framework (whittled down over the years from nine) excludes portions of the capital’s 100km commuter belt from the burgeoning eastern and midlands region – notably Wexford and Carlow, which both recorded a 9 per cent population increase, , as well as southern parts of Cavan and Monaghan.

The NPF’s “compact growth” objective has been shredded by the location of the biggest surges. While the population of Dublin city rose by only 6 per cent, Fingal and Kildare increased by 11 per cent, Meath by 13 per cent and Longford by 14 per cent. Cork city’s 5 per cent and Galway city’s 6 per cent were eclipsed by their respective counties, both up by 8 per cent.

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The Department of Housing has initiated a five-year review of the NPF, stating that “a national strategy which provides a clear vision to guide future development and investment decisions is critical in co-ordinating the all-of-Government approach to spatial development”. This review is to be carried initially by an expert group, followed by a round of consultations with stakeholders and then a wider “national public consultation” in November.

As currently cast, the NPF allocates 50 per cent of the anticipated growth in population and employment to “the five cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford”, with large and smaller towns, villages and rural areas accommodating the rest. But even placing Dublin and the four second-tier cities in the same sentence, without any differentiation, is so asymmetrical as to be absurd.

Dublin’s metropolitan area contains about four times the population of Cork’s, and is much larger still than the three other cities, even when their populations are combined. The capital is in a class of its own. Yet the NPF “supports the future growth of Dublin as Ireland’s leading global city of scale” – even though it has already attained critical mass in European terms and doesn’t need to be aggrandised.

Under the NPF’s “targeted pattern of development”, Dublin city and its suburbs would grow by a further 265,000, absorbing more than half of the eastern and midlands region’s growth to 2040 and also significantly exceeding – by more than 10 per cent – the combined growth target for all four second-tier cities and their suburbs: Cork (+115,000), Limerick (+50,000), Galway (+45,000) and Waterford (+30,000).

The continued expansion of Dublin – fuelled by the over-concentration of economic activity around the capital and the laissez-faire approach to national spatial planning – will severely inhibit the development prospects of the four smaller cities, thereby preventing them from acquiring critical mass to become economic engines of their regions.

Incredibly, there are those who believe that the current NPF review should “pivot away” from any attempt to curtail Dublin’s dominance, arguing that this would lead only to economic self-harm. “It’s for the birds,” according to demographic consultant Brian Hughes, a founder member of the Irish Cities 2070 think tank. Instead, he wants to see the emphasis placed on developing the Dublin-Belfast “economic corridor”.

But Dr PJ Drudy, emeritus economics fellow of TCD, points out that Dublin is also experiencing serious “diseconomies” as a result of over-concentration. “These include escalating house and land prices, traffic congestion and pollution, high levels of crime, and pressure on schools and other social facilities. Spreading population and economic activity more evenly throughout the country would reduce these pressures.”

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Record house prices and stratospheric rents mean that it is unaffordable for many younger people to live in the capital, unless they remain in the family home. Schools are unable to recruit teachers due to the absence of affordable homes. Hospitals are having difficulty employing and holding on to staff. More people are long-distance commuting to work in Dublin.

The M50 is a metaphor for this dystopia. By far the most heavily used road in the country, it carries up to 145,000 vehicles per day, including thousands of trucks. Traffic congestion is chronic at peak times, despite a €1 billion upgrade in 2010. This congestion will be aggravated by further upgrades on national radial routes feeding into it from the west and south.

There is a “Plan B” – the Dublin Outer Orbital Route, a second motorway bypass of the city to relieve the M50. It would start just south of Drogheda, running inland towards Navan and then south via Enfield to join up with the M7 and M9 motorways near Newbridge. Although this plan, hatched in 2008, has been deferred until “after 2035″, its aim to cater for a motorised society makes nonsense of the “15-minute city”.

Meanwhile, regional inequalities in Ireland grow wider, even in monetary terms. Figures on disposable income released last year by the Central Statistics Office showed that the gap between Dublin and Border areas of the northern and western region increased to €8,235 per person in 2020, more than double the gap 10 years earlier, while Co Donegal recorded Ireland’s lowest average disposable income of €18,656.

Without direct intervention by Government, the “business as usual” trend towards consolidating Dublin as the epicentre of Ireland’s economy at the expense of everywhere else will continue. Such intervention would involve recasting the NPF to achieve more balanced regional development by creating alternative growth centres focused on Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford, underpinned by serious investment.

If a radical change of planning policy doesn’t happen, Ireland is in grave danger of replicating the gross inequality that’s so evident in Britain, where there is such a concentration of wealth and “greedy stockpiling of power” in London, as Andrew Marr has put it, that its government had to establish the department for levelling up to “support communities across the UK to thrive, making them great places to live and work”.

That’s what we should be aiming to achieve in Ireland too.