Ireland after NAMA

Media coverage of the 2016 Population and Migration Estimates, just issued by the Central Statistics Office, has focused on the return to net immigration. This, combined with the recent report that 2 million people are now at work in Ireland, has been used as evidence of an economic upturn in Ireland.

These headline figures mask an important change that has taken place in Ireland. That change is shown by the ‘dependency ratio’, which measures the relative size of younger and older populations (under 15 and over 64) compared to the working age population (between 15 and 64). This ratio is important, because working people provide funds for public services and benefits, such as full-time education, health care and pensions, that are used by the younger and older populations. The higher this figure, the more people have to be supported by each working person.

The total dependency ratio across the EU as a whole in 2015 was 52.6% (calculated by Eurostat). This includes the young dependency ratio (23.8%) and the old age dependency ratio (28.8%). In Ireland in 2016, the total dependency ratio in 2016 was 55.3%, made up of the young dependency ratio (34.5%) and the old age dependency ratio (20.8%). On one level, this shows that there are proportionately more younger people and fewer older people in Ireland than across the EU. It is possible to argue that Ireland’s high young dependency ratio is potentially positive, but this would only be the case if these young people remained in Ireland. Instead, the CSO figures show us that many young people have left, particularly those aged between the ages of 20 and 40.

In 2016, total dependency ratios varied across regions. The highest was the Border region (62.7%), while the lowest was Dublin (49.8%). There were also considerable variations in the young and old age dependency ratios. These are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Dependency ratios by region in Ireland, 2016

Source: Calculated from CSO Population and Migration Estimates 2016

The geographical variation highlights one problem, since some areas (e.g. Border, West, and Mid-West) have proportionately fewer economically active people. A second problem is the dramatic change in total dependency ratio since 2009, when the average in Ireland was 47.3% (see Table 2). This means that there has been a significant increase in the proportion of younger and older people who are supported by working people.

Table 2: Total dependency ratio by region in Ireland, 2009 and 2016

Sources: Calculated from CSO Population and Migration Estimates, 2009 and 2016

Across the EU, changes in dependency ratios are attributed to declining fertility rates and ageing populations. This is not the case in Ireland, which consistently has one of the highest fertility rates in the EU. While the population of Ireland is ageing, the country has the lowest proportion of people aged over 64 in the EU. Instead, the key factor in Ireland’s changing dependency ratios is the decline in the proportion of the population aged between 15 and 65. This is a result of migration: in particular, the net emigration of almost 170,000 people aged from 15 to 44 in the years from 2009 to 2016. Net emigration is the main reason for the striking change in dependency ratios in Ireland.

Headline figures, such as a return to net immigration in 2016, mask the ongoing and persistent effects of austerity in Ireland. The increase in dependency ratios means that the working-age people who remain in Ireland have more people to support, particularly in rural areas. These geographical variations will intensify further in future years. There are long-term consequences from austerity, and the dependency ratios show this clearly, through the loss of a significant number of economically active people from the country. Headline figures must not distract us from this, more troubling, reality.

Mary Gilmartin

Rule #1 of the neoliberal playbook – when faced with a construction crisis, attack the planning system! It has been ever so since Michael Heseltine, Thatcher’s environment secretary in the 1980s, launched his broadside against the “jobs locked up in the dusty filing cabinets of planning departments”. Of course, it matters little whether there is any evidence that the planning system is indeed stifling construction – the ideology demands that planning regulation remains firmly in the crosshairs. As Michael Gunder puts it – planning is “the chief remaining scapegoat of neoliberal governance”, a convenient patsy for contemporary policy failures.

Simon Coveney’s glossy production ‘Rebuilding Ireland – An Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness’ launched last month to much fanfare promises a ‘root and branch’ review of the planning system. A headline element of the strategy is to speed-up the planning process – an ever-present feature of neoliberal planning reforms – by allowing large housing applications of a hundred units or more to be made directly to An Bord Pleanála. This is proposed as a temporary measure for four years to incentivise large-scale housing production in a manner similar to strategic infrastructure applications.

The apparent rationale for this fast-tracked planning consent system is that: “with almost all planning approvals of larger housing developments for 100 new homes or more being appealed to An Bord Pleanála, this has meant that there is in effect a two-stage planning application process which can take 18 to 24 months to secure ultimate approval to go on site and start to build.” (Pg 62). 

Of course, no evidence is presented to support this assertion. Indeed, An Bord Pleanála’s own annual report, published earlier this month, states that: “The number of appeal cases for housing developments received over the past two years has remained low, 35 cases of 30+ units in 2014 versus the peak of 568 in 2007. While the number of 30+ housing appeals received has increased slightly (60 to the end of 2015), the number of such cases remains low.” (Pg 35). All of these appeals, according to An Bord Pleanála, have been disposed of within the statutory compliance time of eighteen weeks.

Furthermore, there is also no evidence whatsoever that the strategic infrastructure process actually speeds-up the planning system, with just half of such applications over the past ten years decided upon within eighteen weeks and, only then, after lengthy pre-application consultations.

The reality is that, despite the assiduous commitment by influential commentators over the past few years to successfully paint a picture of planning as the chief villain and bugbear in impeding housing supply, permission is currently in place for 27,000 shovel ready homes in Dublin alone. According to the strategy, just 4,809 or 18% of these potential units are currently under active construction i.e. 82% of potential homes with planning permission are not commenced at all. The planning system is clearly not the impediment here.

The strategy even includes a proposal that the lifetime of these extant planning permissions be extended further. This would mean that often poor quality and poorly located Celtic Tiger era housing could still be constructed as far out as 2021. Furthermore, according to the Residential Land Availability Survey, as I have written previously, nationwide, there is enough zoned land to provide for 16 years of new housing supply based on an annual projected requirement of 25,000 units.

In order to maximise the efficiency of the process under the new system, the strategy proposes that An Bord Pleanála will be required to make a decision within eighteen weeks and will only be able to seek requests for further information or to hold oral hearings in “exceptional circumstances”. For local authority own development under Part VIII (social housing, roads, community facilities etc.), the whole process is to be streamlined to a maximum of twenty weeks. Proposals for major housing developments and other infrastructure are complex undertakings which are irreversible and shape places and communities for generations.

The idea that adequate consideration could be given to such proposals, while fulfilling all requirements pursuant to EU and national law, within these compressed timeframes and without recourse to seeking further environmental or technical information or giving adequate consideration to local concerns or right of appeal, is a recipe for yet another great planning disaster. While the need to intensify use of vacant space in town centres is paramount, the proposal in the strategy to exempt from planning permission residential development over shops and commercial units also seems neither sensible nor workable.

Of course, if the history of strategies in Ireland is any yardstick, we should not get too carried away about Rebuilding Ireland actually ever being implemented and it will most likely remain just a paper strategy. All of the targets in it seem hopelessly optimistic and the funding proposals tenuous. It is interesting, however, that its publication was uncritically welcomed by pretty much everyone from the Construction Industry Federation to the Peter McVerry Trust – for in the teeth of a ‘crisis’ who could be against a housing strategy?

This is the trump card of lobby groups such as the CIF – to position their vested interests as an illusory societal interest. The Irish Planning Institute, not an organisation given to mounting robust defences against planning scapegoating, were among the few to release an insipid statement expressing “concern”.

However, there are very good reasons to be vigilant about the prevailing anti-planning rhetoric and the ‘root and branch’ review of planning proposed by Coveney. Over the past five years, the government has shown scant interest in implementing the crucial regulatory reforms recommended by the Mahon Tribunal and have consistently shown de-regulatory tendencies. Completely absent from this strategy are any measures to provide a pro-active role for planning in delivering housing and other infrastructure – like ensuring local authorities are staffed with the requisite range of planners and other expertise? The only reference to local authority resources is the introduction of new on-line planning services, again in the name of efficiency.

It is perhaps the greatest indictment of the impotence of the state that, in a Circular Letter issued by Coveney subsequent to the publication of the strategy, the so called ‘active land management’ measures involve politely asking developers to sell their lands to housing providers and, if not, local authorities should identify alternative lands elsewhere. Absent is the one measure, as recommended by pretty much everyone, that could actually release hoarded zoned and serviced land into productive use, re-invigorate under-utilised town centre properties and simultaneously contribute to the finances of broke local authorities – a site value tax.

Instead, the state has once again capitulated to the development lobby and opted to subsidise developers through a new infrastructure fund, abolition of windfall taxes on sale of zoned lands, reduced development contribution levies, much weakened Part V social housing requirements and lowered apartment standards.

Gavin Daly

Annual Conference of the RSA Irish Branch (in conjunction with NUI Galway and The Western Development Commission   Planning for Regional Development)

The National Planning Framework as a Roadmap for Ireland’s Future?

Friday 9 September 2016, NUI Galway

Preliminary Program Now Available at:

Click to access rsa_-_conference_v_2.pdf