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LAST WEEK, IBEC chief executive Danny McCoy warned that the island of Ireland needs to be ready to have a population of 10 million by 2050.
He argued that investment on a massive scale is needed on that basis.
But how realistic is the prediction – and, if it happens, could we deal with it?
Density
CSO projections estimate that the population in the Republic could hit around 6.7 million by 2046, so a 10 million figure is possible, but not probable. Even that projection is in a scenario where Ireland’s fertility rate is high.
But let’s assume that huge swathes of the diaspora come home, there is low migration and fertility goes up slightly and, by New Year’s Eve 2049, the 10 millionth resident of the country is born.
In terms of density, Ireland could easily deal with the extra bodies. Sure, there’s tons of room:
A population growth from 4.6 million to 10 million would bring Ireland’s population density from 65.3 per square kilometre to 142 per square kilometre. That would make the country more dense than China, but still only the 83rd most dense country in the world.
The problem, as the next map shows, is that Irish people and people arriving in Ireland don’t spread out evenly. They spread out like this:
Dublin and its metropolitan area currently account for around 39% of Ireland’s population, not to mention those in a commuter belt that is getting further and further from the capital.
If Ireland’s population hit 10 million, that would mean 3.9 million people living in and around Dublin unless building and settling habits shift radically.
That is not to mention that Dublin’s low-rise suburbs are almost at saturation point when it comes to housing anyway. Blanchardstown, for example, has 105,000 residents and not a whole lot more green space to build on.
Dig up, stupid
One solution, says head of the School of Spatial Planning at DIT, Henk van der Kamp, is to fill in the gaps of what’s there and be ready to go up.
He says that Ireland could sustain such a rise in population, but planning needs to start soon.
“Planning is about being prepared. You always need to plan for a much higher population that is actually envisaged.
“We can be prepared in two ways. One, we can get the infrastructure in place, but we also need to decide what you are doing and how.”
He says that throwing an extra couple of million people into Dublin probably wouldn’t be very comfortable, but says that the idea of a “network city”, with dense urban centres from Dublin to Swords to Dundalk to Belfast, could work.
“A city of 3 million people isn’t a great idea, but a network city could do it. It would be a much bigger footprint, but it wouldn’t be a sprawl model. You could go away from the current city and take another node like Swords and build.
“If you have good transport connections, it can be done.”
He says that in places like Adamstown and Newbridge in particular, development has only happened on one side of the railway lines, contrary to best practice.
The market, he argues, cannot be allowed dictate long-term planning.
“It has to be done in a managed way. You’re talking about significant growth in population. There’s a lot of land around the railway lines that can be made denser.
“But you can’t let the market dictate planning.”
Charleville
Building along a corridor requires planning and maybe a little bit of thinking outside the box.
The example van der Kamp uses is Charleville in Cork. Situated between Cork and Limerick cities, it is on the Dublin rail line and has vast space around its traditional town centre.
“If you think of Charleville. It is important in its strategic location. It’s a small town, with a lot of land. You could plan to put an American company there and build a new town there. It would be part of a corridor with Cork and Limerick and have regular rail links to Dublin.
“It takes a brave man to say “I’m putting 1 million people in Charleville, but if an American company wanted to build there, the IDA could attract them and start building.”
So, could we cope with 10 million people in 35 years?
“It can be done. There is plenty of time to buy the land and build the infrastructure. But it has to start now”.
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Holland has 16 million people in an area the size of Munster. Belgium has 10 million people in a similar sized area. Shock horror. ..Yes Ireland could cope with 10 people. Problem is , the planners and politicians couldn’t. We have third world public transport now. These muppets in Dail Eireann couldn’t organise a booze up in a brewery , whatever about building a public transport system….that would be the problem..
Why would we want a population of 10 million anyway? Ireland is densely enough populated as it is.
Where?
It’s not about wanting a population of 10 million. This is inevitable. It’s going to happen so it needs to be planned for now (really should have been planned for years ago)
Why is it going to happen? Most modern western European countries are expieriencing 0 or negative population .
O or negative population growth. One thing this planet does not need is more people.
Holland is not an island. Ireland is.
We are not located near the centre of the European Market and we are dependent on an island neighbour for our food imports.
@scipio – The last year Ireland had a population decline was 1990. Between 1994 and 2004 we had an average annual increase of 45K people, between 2004 and 2014 that was 55K annually, so just over 1 million increase in population in 20 years. Even in the last 5 years, up to 2014 we have seen a net increase of 70K people. Our natural increase (births less deaths) is still running close to 40K per year.
10m no problem is it should be more spread out. Rural Ireland is dying we need to find ways to make it more attractive to live there
@Michael Fehily. What you’ve explained is what I was trying to say when I wrote of vested interests and organisational inability. There are just too many excuses made for inaction instead of reasons for action, in Ireland. Too many negative thoughts.
Ibec can Phuck off. At the end of the day that’s big business saying we need more robots to work their machines to make them richer. Why don’t they invest in training up the people here?
On a side note, we had over ten million before the famine until the brits starved and murdered us.
ibec are selling us carp here Though, plan for helping your own people that arehere now, combat ageism which isall prevalent.
No need to over populate the island of we go after the high end niche stuff.
Think scipio is talking about natural population growth, or birth rates. We are the only Western European country with a birth rate adequate to maintain our population (2.1). Therefore any increases in population will be caused by immigration, which is not inevitable, it is a matter of public policy.
I’m not opposed to immigration as such, but what’s being described here is actually the Irish becoming a minority in Ireland, which is usually nonsense scaremongering. I don’t think this would be a good thing, we need to change migration patterns globally. This idea that because we have more worthless paper money than Africa or the Middle East so we can just nick all their doctors rather than bother training our own (and this same effect can be seen in many industries) is an absolutely disgusting way to take advantage of poor countries, yet all liberals will ever see is how great our multicultural society is, while never passing a moment’s care to how our multicultural society is damaging other monocultural societies by stealing their best talent.
Joe, population was 8.2M in 1841 – http://www.libraryireland.com/articles/CensusIrelandDUM23-137/
We are not dependent on food imports from Britain, quite the opposite in fact
The attraction of living in rural Ireland is the peace and tranquillity from it not being overpopulated Charles.
I’d rather it stayed that way.
That was an interesting comment Egg Head until I read, “all Liberals can see” when it instantly became a prejudice.
We might have to consider reclaiming more land from the sea if Dublin keeps expanding like the map above illustrates , we’d need to build a main road to Liverpool
Holland has 16 million people in an area the size of Munster.
Yes and the quality of life is shiiit unless you are rich. The houses are shoe boxes. Ireland will turn into the Haiti of Europe.
Plus the Dutch are known for being efficient and organised, they reclaimed land from the sea, this is a bad idea, all because the suits want bigger markets. It’s time Ireland started realizing we have a pristine country, and a unique special people while the rest of the world races to globalism, we will be the different jewel, they will all be wishing they had retained their uniqueness too, instead they will be all like little Americas, no character just boring same bland crap everywhere.
I can just imagine the red puffy faced buffoonery at midnight dail sessions with sexed up pants down ministers playing sit on my lap with their unwilling female counterparts. Questions in slurred broken english with the odd focal thrown in as to why project transport hyperloop uimhir a haon was 25 years and 100 billion over budget.
Balbriggan
We mostly export food.
Van den Lamp has obviously never driven between Limerick and Cork via Charleville. Must be the worst intercity road in Europe. Single lane, dangerous bends, no bypass. Full of potholes. People getting killed or maimed on the entire length of it almost on a monthly basis.
I was just going to say, that road is disgraceful. Don’t those traveling between two major cities in Ireland not deserve a decent road? From Banogue to Mallow is in such a poor condition.
And have you seen the state of paudie murphys shed, sure they’d never fit a data centre in there.
In fairness to Charleville, it is a town that has weathered the recession fairly well…mostly down to Kerry Group who have invested heavily in the cheese and milk powder sites and the financial offices. Having worked in both whilst I was a student, I was grateful for the employment. Its proximity to Limerick and Cork certainly helps but it is a shame about the road through the town, traffic on a Friday is ridiculous.
You are all correct in your evaluation of the road. Fix that though and you have an ideal candidate.
Paudie Murphy’s shed has a wicked draft even on a warm day though, great for cooling hundreds of servers, and that is factored into the cost/benefit analyses presented to prospective multinational investors. He has managed a fine dairy farm for decades so a server farm would be no bother to him.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that building the Cork to Limerick might be a given in any such scenario he was talking about.
Do you want us to supplier helicopters too.
That’s a lot of babies that need making. better start now, people.
Or are they planning on making up the numbers by bringing people from other countries?
That’s all explained in the article if you bothered reading it
If you’d read it, you’d notice that doubling Ireland’s population in 35 years is extremely unlikely based on the projections given, but they’re still suggesting it’s possible – which suggests immigration, a subject conspicuous by its absence in the discussion. So they haven’t explained it, just assumed it for the sake of argument.
There are actually people who don’t care where the workers come from as long as the GDP figures look good.
I’ve read it twice and it’s actually not.
The likes of Ibec would like to see it happen. And if it’s to happen it will be done by stealth. Feck the social consequences the likes of Ibec only care about profit margins, and not one iota about the loss of national identity such a policy would bring.
How will it “be done by stealth”?
Get the odd shly ride in. Dont tell the missus. Stealth growth.
We need investment and employment to keep our own people here before we invite others in ,we dont have a great history of success in this department ,so excuse me if im sceptical.
I would love to see better infrastructure and roads in rural ireland to attract investment , planning ahead is great in principle but in execution we tend to favour the east of the country , we have the potential to attract cruise ships and massive tourism to the west and south west if we could develop Tarbert and Galways ports to accomodate them ,the employment created would benefit these areas immensely, if growth is spread out so all benefit i am all for it.
We’ll find out soon enough at the rate of undocumented entering the country.
What is the rate of undocumented immigration?
We would need to build up high rise buildings especially in Central Dublin.
Makes sense if a person who works in city centre lives close by. Instead of a satiate towns and adds to tragic congestion, and has to get up at 5 in the morning for work.
We are at the perfect time to go up in dublin. The state under nama owns large land banks in the city. Planning can be made for higher apartment complexs. The key is two things. A. The size and quality of the apartments at least 3 bedroom. B. The amenities that you put around them, playgrounds, cafes, shops, small parks. We cant keep building houses further and further out from the city centre. Will it happen , not on your Nellie. Could our government and Dcc come up with this. Not a hope!
“Planning is about being prepared” Didn’t know you could get a degree in stating the obvious.
Let’s get them all in and give them JobBridge positions.
Why are the 6 counties missing ? :( surely we will also have a United Ireland in that time
That’s so cute.
Well, we might. We need extra people and the North will never be a net contributor to the UK. It would be a huge contributor to an all-Ireland economy once they’d been weaned off public jobs.
We could direct FDI to Belfast to counterbalance Dublin, but that’ll never happen in the UK.
Dont you have school today Fintan? And no, we wont have a united ireland. Nor would we want one. Sinn Fein IRA and their dodgy nordie mafia style politics are the greatest threat to this country.
Now Fred there is no ,(we) your on your own !
Would the Irish language be compulsory in a United Ireland?
If so, thanks, but no thanks!
Send them all to Mohill and get business up and running again.
It won’t happen. There’s too many vested interests in Ireland. Infrastructure takes too long to organise, let alone start. The weather is appalling. Wages are too high. Education is dreadful.
Our education system is consistently in the top-10 globally
Not primary education.
Just so facts can get in the way – http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com/index/index-ranking
Thanks, Harold, but not what I’ve seen in some schools.
Which schools?
“not what I’ve seen in some schools.”
Wow – nothing beats anecdotal evidence!
The problem would be however that the country would no longer be Irish, where exactly are these extra 5.5 million people to come from? Syria? Libya?
Can we make sure the new 6 million are all well educated, motivated and capable of earning over 100k per annum?
It will make for a more productive country.
That would really help with the gerrynomics calculations – 6M X €100K X 75% tax = free everything for everyone, except the tax payers of course
Amen Harold. You’ve said the harsh truths
Yes but then who is going to do all the actual work johngin?
Good news, Dublin going the ranks of global cities can only be good for Ireland as a country.
We need to rezone areas of Dublin for high rise development, interconnect and build new forms of public transport, build the airport metro, additional connections for emerging markets in Asia/Middle East etc at Dublin airport, maintain the Dublin london air route capacity, break the cycle of home ownership obsession, stabilize the rental market.
Lots of potential to go wrong without careful planning
Yeah let’s just all live like rats, each renting a shoebox, fk that.
It is time to control immigration!
If all the “asylum seekers”, who pass through other countries and don”t bother to “seek asylum” in any, are not deported, Ireland will be swamped.
I’m pretty certain the IBEC figure was for the whole island. That’s only around a 50% population rise. And presumably the Greater Belfast area would also attract its share.
How do we propose to feed these ten million? Build over our agricultural land, then what have we for food production?. By 2049 the population elsewhere will have expanded also so food will be scarce. Then there is recreation space, we would probably build over it to create housing. Or should I just not worry, seems like this prediction is mainly based on some American company needing a city of a million people to create medical devices such as brain implants for better spatial awareness.
We export enough food to feed around 60 million people, and that was with quotas in place
Interesting point Tom. A doubled population would mean building over huge swathes of agricultural land which would lead to a significant decrease in production or an increase in more intensive farming practices both of which would be detrimental. It would also have a negative impact on tourism. No more green fields or cute postcards of sheep in the road – just motorways, factories, high rises, electricity pylons and wind farms. A terrible idea.
Export enough dairy produce due to overproduction, cereals all stay in IRL. 60 million people avail of our exports? Would like to see that report? Any facts you could post up?
Doubling our population wouldn’t necessarily mean losing much agricultural land if we focus more on high-rise development. The city of Dublin could possibly double population capacity over the course of the next 30 years if high-rise development was accelerated in the city center.
Unless we built upwards instead of outwards.
And what about the added stress on the environment. Less resources, more poverty, more greed, more production, more waste, more pollution. We’ll be lucky if we have a habitable planet by 2050. The world is over populated as it is.
5 million on the dole? Mmm not sure we could cope.
Cork city could desperately do with population growth. It’s one if not the only city in western Europe that is experiencing declining population.
A terrible reflection for any city
Can you even call Cork a city really…. More of a town I’d you ask me.
A population of 120K in Cork city. That’s about 20% more than Blanchardstown!
That figure of 120k is for the council area only. Using a similar figure leaves Dublin with only 527,000 people. Now, if we’re talking about the populations of the urban areas, Dublin has 1.1 million while Cork has 200,000. 200,000, while a long way from being the largest, is bigger than a lot of cities in Western Europe. So, yes, in comparison with Dublin it is a lot smaller, but it is still a city.
Cork City’s official population is a total red herring as it’s based on a City boundary which is 50 years out of date. The population of the real City is in excess of 200k, while the Cork metro region has a population exceeding 350k or so. Those figures show a massive growth in Corks population. The City boundary is currently being revised thankfully.
Saying that though, your figure does show that Cork has seen a decline in its inner city population which isn’t a good thing. Hopefully the docklands initiative will in time reverse that.
What did Dublin Trolls do all day before the World Wide Web was invented?
Did they call randomers in Cork, Galway and Limerick and say ” Oi live in a bigger urban agglomeration dan yoo, so I bleedin’ do?”
Jeeze if I hear that poxy word Sustain once more!
I’d maybe focus on investing in bringing Cork, Limerick and Galway up to a higher level of mass compared to Dublin before I’d go talking about putting 1 million people in somewhere like Charleville.
The IBEC article spoke of an island of Ireland population of 10m, considering the island’s population as of 2011 was almost 6.4m it’s not that big a stretch. In that scenario the bulk of the growth would probably be along the Dublin – Belfast corridor.
When the rest of the world sends us all back to Ireland, the population will be 12million
Yes china india poland brazil all.have populations multiples of ireland and they are exporting people to Ireland
Idiocy
Ireland only needs organic population growth
They are not making any more resources on the earth you know
You cannot have infinite growth in an finite world
In fact population density is a problem for . countries why create it here.
We are lucky.
If we had honest intelligence people we could have a good life for every one on the country.
Of course this takes wisdom honesty and taking care of the common good something ibec are not really interest in.
Political reform,we will need treble the number of TD’s ,holy mother.
The world cannot cope with its present population and because of climate change, pollution, finite resources and environmental degradation the situation will become increasingly difficult. Overpopulation is the number one environmental problem because it impacts all the others. And we have to consider the other species who share our planet who are as entitled to space to live as we are. We must control our population for the sake of our quality of life, other species and future generations.
There is a problem in Ireland now with housing and I think there may be with water supply in the future. Also it isn’t just a matter of coping but of how it would change the country.
Why does this say Ireland and not the Republic of Ireland. Who ever did this research left out the 6 counties. By the way it’s ridiculous that they did considering we are a small island.
10 million? Never going to happen thanks to various government policies over the years forcing people to emigrate. Dont forget the billions we are told we have to pay, never a chance of any serious investment.
Thought IBEC report was for the island of Ireland not just the Republic
Where is he getting this figure from? The UN – who would be far better resourced than IBEC, have an estimate of every country’s population by 2050 http://www.photius.com/rankings/world2050_rank.html and ours is estimated to be 5.366 million. Now why would IBEC grossly inflate the figure, it would never be to kick start another property building frenzy?
The story is nonsense – it just isn’t going to happen! Even 10 million on the whole island of Ireland is fairly unlikely. Birthrate is roughly at replacement rate now but could decline further, even with a fair degree of inward migration (a whole different debate!) it’s doubtful the Republic’s population will top six million million any time soon? A united Ireland would maybe hit 7.5-8 million tops!!!
Environmental impact that 10 million people would have on this Island? Capitalism is only sustainable through profit and growth, simply put more consumers. How about addressing the real issue and tackling the immediate problems of Housing, health care and the expansion of the modern sweat shop namely Call centers. Jobs don’t help the economy if workers do not get paid fairly. 9.9 million people working for minimum wage propping up the 1% and the establishment….The DO’Bbies of this world would love that.
Wicklow is standing up to Dublin and telling it to sprawl somewhere else on this map.
With overpopulation, it’s socially irresponsible to produce more than yourselves. 2 of you? 2 or less kids. If every couple has 3 or 4 kids, it’s not going to end well in 100+ years.
10 million ……..no problem today!
Ireland GDP €210 billion p.a. wealth created supports just 4.6 million people.
Portugal GDP €213 billion p.a. wealth created supports 10.4 million people.
Italy GDP €2014 billion p.a. wealth created supports 61 million people.
So something very wrong with the Irish economy today, that it cannot support at least 6 million people.
Who is grabbing an unfair portion of the wealth created by the population?
Why did 300,000 have to be “exported” after the 2008 crash?
Who are the financial predators grabbing the wealth …… ?
Some major reforms needed before Irish have a successful fair equitable society to sustain itself.
PS: Can all of us 300,000 who were exported get out tax back please .. about $45 Billion (300,000 x 15 yrs x €10,000 tax p.a.) rather than using it to drive around in 151 cars …. not quite as much as ye gave to the Banks (€67 billion)
they never factored in the famine when the population hits 8million
Realistically is 10 million going to happen? Historically 8.5 million pre famine was the highest known population and Ireland has not achieved that figure since, inspite of the influx of immigrants. Theoretically I believe the country could sustain 10 million if the people were more evenly spread across the land but we know people tend to crowd around cities and towns. As for planning for that number, sounds good but we don’t have a brilliant record in that department just look at what happened in the boom years. As the infrastructure stands at the moment we certainly could not
Yes in famine Ireland, where people lived 10 to a house, where they got by on less, where there were less roads and less houses. Idiot, 10 million in todays terms would ruin this country and feel like a sardine can.
Our population is growing no doubt, we need to grow our resources, healthcare and jobs along with it first of all. We can’t keep having shortages of beds and an increase of people lying on trolleys while our population grows. We need to be prepared.
Headline says 10 million on the island. We’re already at over 6.5m. Getting to 10m by 2050 doesn’t imply a doubling of the population (assuming it’s the island and includes the North). Growing at just over 1% per annum gets us to 10m by 2050.
It should be planned for. In my view sought after. Larger more urban populations will help build a domestic market, broaden the tax base and dilute petty, pernicious political affiliations forged on small town, small minded cods wallop.
We had 8.5m people before the famine, which was 60% the English population at the time. If we held that ratio we would have a pop of c. 30m.
Fred , the 6 counties are where dynamic politics are happening, but you obviously struggle to see past your nose
have your say