Sustainable Urban Planning: Population Targets for Ireland’s Cities

Following our previous post on National Policy Objective 2, this post continues our focus on contemporary Irish spatial policy at the national and regional scales in relation to sustainable urban development.

The specific objective discussed here is NPO 4 (National Planning Framework, 2025). This objective requires that 50% of the national population and employment growth take place within the built-up areas of Ireland’s five cities: Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford. This goal is broken down into specific population targets for each city.

Context: an overview of growth in Irish cities

Over the past century, the urban population in Ireland has risen from 32.3% in 1926 (CSO, 1967) to 62.7% in 2016. Much of this growth may be attributed to urbanisation within the Dublin metropolitan region, including the counties of Louth, Meath, Kildare, and Wicklow.

In the first half of this period, growth in the Eastern and Midland Region was predominantly driven by an increase in the city and county of Dublin, rising from 17% (1926) to 28.6% (1971) of the national population. Since then, Dublin’s population – as a percentage of the national total – has remained remarkably consistent, equalling 28.3% in 2016.

In the latter half of this period, growth in the Mid-East region dominated, increasing in population by 168% between 1971 and 2022. This area is now home to almost 15% of the country’s population.

These broad shifts in population are reflected in more granular city-level data as well.

The population of the inner city of Dublin (the area bound by the Grand Canal and Royal Canal) peaked in 1926, equalling 84.9% of the metropolitan population. Notable decline began after 1936, with a 17.5% fall between 1936 and 1951, and a further 27.4% reduction between 1957 and 1961, so that by 1971 the population had fallen to 132,231 – 49% of its 1926 peak – accounting for 17.9% of the total for the city and suburbs. During the 1970s, these trends would extend to the inner suburbs and Dún Laoghaire, though the percentage losses recorded would not be as extreme, averaging approximately 10% (Bannon and Eustace, 1981, pp. 46–47).

From 1971–81, the population of the ‘Greater Dublin Area’ (CSO, 1982) grew by 14.2% (Hourihan, 1983, p. 113). This occurred in the context of further city-centre decline (35.8% decrease) and suburban expansion (300% increase in the north suburbs, 68% increase in the south suburbs) (p. 114). Growth during the 1970s would be concentrated on the periphery of the built-up area and along radial routes towards settlements within commutable distances (McCarthy, 2004, p. 49).

The population of the Dublin City Council area – including the city centre – would eventually reach its nadir in 1991, after which a small but steady rise is evident. The local authority’s previous 1966 peak would eventually be surpassed in 2022.

Similar trends have been evident in the nation’s other cities, though occurring during a later period. Brady (2016), in a review of the four cities (Cork, Galway, Limerick, and Waterford) in terms of population change between 2002–11, found a growth pattern suggesting expansion within the functional areas (commuting extents) alongside much weaker growth in the urban core. This was demonstrated by 78% of all population growth within the city region taking place outside the ‘city and suburbs’ (CSO, 2012) and a decline in the share of population for urban cores from 37.6% to 33% (Brady, 2016, p. 2226).

Similarly, the core urban areas (city and suburbs) recorded an 8.3% increase in population between 2002–11, compared to a growth rate of 35% in settlements over 1,500 within the functional urban areas (p. 2228).

One result of this growth pattern has been a divergence in population density between Dublin and Ireland’s ‘second-tier cities’ since the early 1990s. In 2011, the average density of the second-tier ‘city and suburbs’ was 1,310 persons per square kilometre, whereas the equivalent figure for Dublin was 3,498 (Brady, 2016, p. 2226). In 2022 – using the same settlement boundary definition – these figures had diverged further, with a mean population density of 1,404 for the four cities and 3,954 in Dublin.

Policy evaluation

The population targets outlined in NPO 4 illustrate different growth rates for each of the five cities between 2016 and 2040. In the Eastern and Midland Region, the city of Dublin is expected to grow by 20% to 24.7%. In the Southern Region, the cities of Cork, Limerick, and Waterford are expected to collectively increase by 51.9% to 60.3%. In the Northern and Western Region, Galway city is planned to grow by 50% to 56.3%.

Due to intermittent changes in urban boundary definition, it is not possible to accurately compare changes in population growth for individual urban settlements over the long term. However, equivalent boundary data is available for the 2016–22 census period.

This data shows that 32% of national population growth occurred within the built-up area of the five cities – significantly short of the 50% target mandated by NPO 4. Growth in Dublin accounted for 71.2% of all city increases, equivalent to 22.8% of national population growth.

In comparison to the five cities, 45.5% of national population growth took place in towns (1,500–50,000 in size) and 22.4% in non-urban areas during the 2016–22 period. This concentration of growth in small- to mid-sized settlements is consistent with trends identified since the 1960s (Quinn, 1971; Williams and Shiels, 2000; McCafferty, 2019) and suggests that a more coordinated approach will be required nationally if the distribution of future development is to be diverted towards the country’s cities.

At an individual settlement level, Waterford grew the most (12.5%), followed by Limerick (10%), Dublin (7.5%), Galway (7.4%), and Cork (6.6%). If these growth rates were to continue, only Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford would be on track to attain their allocated population increases.

As previously suggested by McCafferty (2019, p. 86), the most ambitious population growth targets set out by the National Planning Framework are for the cities of Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford, equalling ‘… two-and-a-half times the long-term historical growth rate of these centres combined’. Although recent data demonstrates that, for some cities, such growth levels are achievable in the short term, it may be more challenging to maintain this level of increase over an approximately 20-year period.

So far, then, the targets set for NPO 4 have not been met. Growth in the five cities collectively has remained largely dependent on population increases within Dublin city and suburbs, despite ambitions for the four second-tier cities to ‘function as realistic alternative to Dublin’ (National Planning Framework, 2025, p. 9). For the four cities to achieve this status would require levels of growth counter to historical trends. At the same time, the majority of population growth nationally remains concentrated in towns, resulting in more dispersed settlement patterns at the regional scale.

If the goals of NPO 4 are to be achieved, more will need to be done to direct urban development and densification within Ireland’s five cities.

References

Bannon, M. J., & Eustace, J. (1981). Urbanisation: Problems of growth and decay in Dublin (No. 55). National Economic and Social Council.

Brady, W. M. (2016). Territorial development, planning reform and urban governance: The case of Ireland’s second-tier cities. European Planning Studies, 24(12), 2217–2240.

Central Statistics Office. (1967). Census of Population of Ireland 1966: Volume 1. Stationary Office.

Central Statistics Office. (2012). Census 2011: Population Classified by Area. Stationary Office.

Government of Ireland. (2025). National Planning Framework: First Revision. Government of Ireland.

Hourihan, K. (1983). Population Redistribution in Irish Cities: Dublin, Cork and Limerick, 1971-1981. Irish Geography, 16(1), 113–120.

McCafferty, D. (2019). Fifty years of urbanisation in Ireland: Structural and spatial evolution of the urban hierarchy since Buchanan. Administration, 67(3), 65–89.

McCarthy, C. (2004). Crawling Through the Sprawl: Commuting Patterns, Urban Form and Public Transport in Dublin. Irish Banking Review, summer 2004, 15–26.

Quinn, R. (1971). The Threat of Urbanisation in Ireland. Plan, 3(2), 10–13.

Williams, B., & Shiels, P. (2000). Acceleration into Sprawl: Causes and Potential Policy Responses (June 2000; Quarterly Economic Commentary, pp. 37–73). Economic and Social Research Institute.