Policy Summary

The last decade's economic boom has transformed urban Ireland. In 2006 around 95,000 houses and 20,000 apartments were built in the country. New residential and commercial areas have sprung up at the edge of towns and cities and older more established areas have experienced significant social and physical change.

Because of the pace and high level of development in the country, 'pressure points' have emerged that have serious implications for the future sustainability of urban areas. Urban sprawl, time poor communities, rising environmental emissions, critically overloaded infrastructure, community alienation and social fragmentation are all daily manifestations of policy failure in the management of Irish urban development.
The current urban planning framework is disjointed. It fails to make the connections between land use and transportation planning, and the real living and social needs of people in the design of new residential areas. It fails to tackle the issue of recouping the costs of service infrastructure from those who profit from development.

Planning in Ireland is grounded in policy rhetoric on 'Sustainable Development' that says that development should marry economic, social and environmental goals without diminishing resources. Yet the Government continues to set the agenda for a property-led approach to planning that ignores the social, economic and environmental consequences of rising private transport dependence and energy consumption. The model does not provide for the educational or social needs of new communities. Critically, because of the spread of urbanisation, quality of life and connectedness within communities has declined and a new time poor society has emerged.