The Irish Times view on planning for population growth: more to do

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The extent to which plans in areas such as health, education and transport have been future-proofed against the growth in population is unknown

The size of the Irish population and its annual rate of growth would appear to be a matter of some confusion. The European Commission economic affairs directorate puts the nat the end of last year at 5.35 million, an increase of 3.5 per cent. The commission’s statistical service has it at 5.27 million, an increase of 4.2 per cent. Our own Central Statistics Office has landed on 5.28 million as of April this year. An increase of 1.9 per cent.

There is little to be gained from parsing the difference between the three estimates. What is important is the direction of travel and its consequence for public policy. The Government has already been caught out badly in terms of housing policy by setting targets that didn’t reflect the rate of population growth.

Housing is just one area in which population growth must be considered. . It would not be prudent to assume that the current projections for demand for hospital beds, train carriages, school desks and the like reflect the scale of the population increase indicated by the data.

 

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