Is Irelands population too small?

Bullseye1

Its always been my opinion that this countries population is about half of what it should be in order to maintain a sustainable internal market. Am I wrong in thinking this?

femur61

I agree, population is small but we as a nation think big thats why we have a fiscal deficit.

gurramok

Just look at any map and you'll see vast swathes of the country severely depopulated. Yes, there is room for another 4million and it would boost an internal market to have a bigger population.

ei.sdraob

femur61 wrote: »

I agree, population is small but we as a nation dont think that's why we have a fiscal deficit.

FYP

gurramok wrote: »

Just look at any map and you'll see vast swathes of the country severely depopulated. Yes, there is room for another 4million and it would boost an internal market to have a bigger population.

/environmentalist hat on

We need to euthanize people to reduce our impact on the planet and reduce the country's carbon footprint

---

@OP we are part of a 500 million people economy, the worlds largest, the population of this rock is irrelevant considering that other part of europe are overpopualted, we need to take better advantage of EU markets instead

Japer

ei.sdraob wrote: »

/environmentalist hat on

We need to euthanize people to reduce our impact on the planet and reduce the country's carbon footprint

---

@OP we are part of a 500 million people economy, the worlds largest, the population of this rock is irrelevant considering that other part of europe are overpopualted, we need to take better advantage of EU markets instead

+1. The world is overpopulated and the amount of people on this planet has trebled since the end of WW2. It is still snowballing and the earths resources are finite.

Riskymove

ei.sdraob wrote: »

/environmentalist hat on

We need to euthanize people to reduce our impact on the planet and reduce the country's carbon footprint

I think they'd rather we lived in large urban centres rather than dispersed around rural areas, rather than euthanise!:D

they might be for sterilisation in the the developing world alright:D

Leiva

We are not too small , we just borrow too big .

cavedave

Much government spending is non-rival. The spending would be the same if our population was bigger. It costs a similar amount to draft a law whether it is for 5 million or 10 million people for example. I have heard Neil Ferguson claim that a country needs to have a population of about 5 million just to have enough people to cover the costs of being a country (having diplomats and such).

Ireland is the 144th most densely populated country with 63 people per square kilometer. I think we could do with more people.

Manach

I believe it might have more to do with the politicial/social dynamism of the population - Singapore has a similar amount of people but seems to be fairing better than we are at present.

Despite our empty bits we still have double the population density of the USA.

It would be interesting to see what our population would have been if the famine hadn't happened.

Would we have a similar population to Sweden or the Netherlands?
The population of this island was double Sweden's around 1845.

zig

I think we are too small, Ive often thought it, for the type of country we are, so integrated with Europe, we are very 'senstive' to the outside world. I don't think this would be the case if we had a bigger population.

tenchi-fan

Ireland (the republic) is too small, yes.

During the boom Eastern European workers who came to Ireland often worked on a wage where they didn't pay tax, then sent every penny they earned back to Eastern Europe. And IMO African and Muslim immigrants have very little loyalty to the state, causes a high cost to the economy and generally don't fit in. The government keeps poor records, but many Africans arrived in the country with bogus asylum seeker stories and then used Irish citizenship as a gateway to live in the UK. Second generation Muslims in France, the UK and Germany whose parents were happy to start a life there are often responsible for civil unrest and suicide bombings.

I think the solution is to view the UK and Ireland as one region. The Irish population is 4.5m. Include NI and the population is 6.2m. Include the UK and the combined population is 68m. Plenty of scope of growth, trade, etc.

I realise Ireland's past history with the UK can be rocky at times but I'm talking about an economic union & distancing ourselves from the EU rather than Ireland actually joining the UK.

sollar

Deleted User wrote: »

It would be interesting to see what our population would have been if the famine hadn't happened.

Yeah the famine was such a tragedy for this country, our population would prob be nearer 8 or 10million now if the british and ruling classes had not exported most of our crops back then.

later12

The primary question is not itself the population, but in fact the nature of the country's domestic market and how it is supplied.

Doubling our population would not go a long way to satisfying domestic demand for goods and services. Self-sufficiency, and moving away from an open economic model, is neither a desirable nor achievable target to set ourselves in a globalised world and a globalised financial and export market, particularly.

What must change is how we behave within the current model. We need to positively alter the nature of our manufacturing economy and negatively encourage, or at least, refuse to actively promote trading in the non traded sector (law, finance and property). The latter leaves us more vulnerable to external forces, and the former puts us more on a footing with stable economies like Germany's.

We should also encourage increased European fiscal integration to protect ourselves from such serious crisis exposure.

Dannyboy83

tenchi-fan wrote: »

Ireland (the republic) is too small, yes.

During the boom Eastern European workers who came to Ireland often worked on a wage where they didn't pay tax, then sent every penny they earned back to Eastern Europe.

What about all the Irish people who bought property in London/Spain etc.?

tenchi-fan

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

What about all the Irish people who bought property in London/Spain etc.?

They could have been taxed or levied in some way. But no doubt the government would have said this was illegal under EU regulations (nevermind that VRT is illegal). You know the government, they're a pack of f****** morons.

later10

later10 wrote: »

What must change is how we behave within the current model. We need to positively alter the nature of our manufacturing economy ......

We should also encourage increased European fiscal integration to protect ourselves from such serious crisis exposure.

Leaving aside the numbers working in our non traded sector - I thought a big part of our manufacturing economy is based on low corporation taxes and not integrating fiscally.

tenchi-fan

Deleted User wrote: »

Leaving aside the numbers working in our non traded sector - I thought a big part of our manufacturing economy is based on low corporation taxes and not integrating fiscally.

That's why the EU model shows cracks. Unless we integrate fiscally there will never be a true union.
And even though we're all Europeans, the language barriers, cultural differences and national identities mean immigration within the EU is still immigration, and money fleeing the country, whether to pay a Polish labourer or to finance €80bn of debt, it will never be seen again.

ei.sdraob

tenchi-fan wrote: »

That's why the EU model shows cracks. Unless we integrate fiscally there will never be a true union.
And even though we're all Europeans, the language barriers, cultural differences and national identities mean immigration within the EU is still immigration, and money fleeing the country, whether to pay a Polish labourer or to finance €80bn of debt, it will never be seen again.

We should build a barbed wire wall to stop those pesky poles and freeze bank accounts to stop movement of money :P

later12

Deleted User wrote: »

Leaving aside the numbers working in our non traded sector - I thought a big part of our manufacturing economy is based on low corporation taxes and not integrating fiscally.

Yes, but greater fiscal integration does not necessarily preclude the retention of our corporation tax; neither, necessarily, would all models of greater fiscal integration demand that it be kept in place for economic growth to continue based on strong exports and a more solid single currency area.

Rob A. Bank

Deleted User wrote: »

It would be interesting to see what our population would have been if the famine hadn't happened.

We are the only European country with a smaller population than in the mid 1800s.

According to the 1841 census there were 18.5 million in the Britain and 8.2 million people in Ireland.

Today there are an estimated 58 million people in Britain.

So if the Great Hunger had not happened and we had grown at the same rate as Britain, there would be over 25 million people on the island now.

Based on those fantasy demographics we are definately underpopulated.

:cool:

T runner

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

We are the only European country with a smaller population than in the mid 1800s.

According to the 1841 census there were 18.5 million in the Britain and 8.2 million people in Ireland.

Today there are an estimated 58 million people in Britain.

So if the Great Hunger had not happened and we had grown at the same rate as Britain, there would be over 25 million people on the island now.

Based on those fantasy demographics we are definately underpopulated.

:cool:

We dont have the resources, minerals or land quality to maintain that sort of population

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

n900guy

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Its always been my opinion that this countries population is about half of what it should be in order to maintain a sustainable internal market. Am I wrong in thinking this?

No you are right IMO. I think we could do with 15-20 million people to have a well balanced population for an internal market and actual "population competition" in economics and politics.

Dannyboy83

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

We are the only European country with a smaller population than in the mid 1800s.

According to the 1841 census there were 18.5 million in the Britain and 8.2 million people in Ireland.

Today there are an estimated 58 million people in Britain.

So if the Great Hunger had not happened and we had grown at the same rate as Britain, there would be over 25 million people on the island now.

Based on those fantasy demographics we are definately underpopulated.

:cool:

How long until one of the head bangers takes up this line of reasoning?

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2618555,00.html
The prime minister told Polish state-run radio on Tuesday that his own plan for EU voting reform, which would give the Polish vote more weight than the plan endorsed by Germany, is based on the population that the country would have today had not over six million Poles been killed in the six years of World War Two.

later12

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I work in the financial services sector myself, so I am not coming at this point with a negative bias.

Firstly, I am drawing a line between discouraging growth in the financial services sector and actively promoting its growth, the latter being what I referred to. By 'trading in the non traded sector', of course, I am of course, warning against establishing our domestic growth based on financial services and other non traded services, such as law

As you will know, there was not just a bubble in property values, but also in law and finance (the three being often related, of course). I am merely suggesting that instead of actively promoting any of those industries, that we aim to establish our growth on traded goods and to stimulate our manufacturing output. This combined with greater European fiscal integration, should help us to shield against serious external crises in the long term.

Rob A. Bank

T runner wrote: »

We dont have the resources, minerals or land quality to maintain that sort of population

I did say "fantasy demographics".

cavedave

T runner

We dont have the resources, minerals or land quality to maintain that sort of population

Hong kong has 7 million people living in it and they are not endowed with minerals or farmland.

amacachi

If we were to follow the kind of development patterns we have for the last 15 years there's probably room for about a quarter of what could reasonably be fitted into the island. :pac:

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

later12

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yes, well those ellipses belie the full statement somewhat, and indeed the context within which it was made in the post. Nevertheless, I am happy to clarify if needs be. I am talking about hedging our economy from long term crises as best we can, firstly by promoting trade-able output and not relying so heavily on the non traded sectors, secondly by promoting European fiscal solidarity.

Indeed. Unfortunately, this country's financial services industry was not well positioned to accommodate a rapid expansion. Students were plucked out of college and shuttled into the finance and banking industries, where they were awarded good wages on the presumption that they could and would learn on the job. Mentorship was lacking, and cluelessness was and is rampant.

I'm not particularly talking about Ireland - that's part of the point, in fact. I also think it's a bit questionable to get into issues about mentoring or apportioning blame in such a way, nobody would really blame employment or mentoring of graduates for overheating nor bursting the financial bubble. There was an international financial and legal bubble that exposed a lot of serious vulnerability in this economy, and the main point is that we should shield ourselves from market vulnerabilities given that emerging crises in capital or financial markets can have deeper ramifications than more stable domestic industries and outputs.

We need smart financial strategies, though. Manufacturing by itself isn't enough.

I don't think anybody really suggested the latter.

amacachi

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

You probably know more than me but in the financial sector at least I'd've thought the fresh-out-of-college employees had less to do with the collapse than the people at the top committing fraud?

Adhamh

I wasn't waiting until this thread died down a bit to change the direction of it slightly, I swear! I was busy with exams!

I've always wondered what this country would be like if the Famine hadn't happened. We could all make an educated guess I'm sure, but I happened to find the attached image which startled me a bit- just imagine if Tralee or Sligo or Galway drew enough people in from the surrounding places to rival Dublin (which according to the last census is larger than the next hundred settlements combined)? That map (sorry for the poor quality, by the way) shows an Ireland that is the polar opposite of what it is today, except maybe the North, I'm not too sure about the North.

It's purely a 'what if' question, but an interesting one all the same, methinks.

Birdnuts

Loads of weathy countries with low population densities - Irelands problem is that it is an extremly disfunctional society that caters for elites and vested interests - doubling the population will simply increase problems like unemployment and bad planning etc,!!

Hannibal

Regardless of whether the country as a whole the population is maybe smaller than normal. In my opinion Dublin is at maximum capacity, the whole country is lobsided on the Dublin/Belfast corridor.
And i agree with the previous poster about the Eastern Europeans, they came here lived like a Spartan and piled into practically tenament conditions and sent every penny they could home. A lot of them I knew had a five/ten year plan to come here work like crazy then return home to their families with enough money to build mansions. I dont blame them for doing it because the opportunity was there but it took massive money out of our economy.
I'd be interested to see broken down figures for what we pay for the Africans a year. Big houses courtesy of the HSE places like Blanch and Swords got particularly swamped, loads of children for the purpose of childrens allowance and they know every scam going. If people wonder why we cant afford hospital beds its because of the HSE paying landloards rent. The social welfare paid for most of their taxi plates and cars and they recieved grants for setting up their own business.
The Asian/Chinese communities I'd also be wary of having visited China Town in New York and London theyre a hot bed of counterfeit goods it would have to be seen to be believed. Moore Street and Parnell Street is heading that way