Population of 5 million soon

Yurt2

sebdavis wrote: »

Hard to know, all estimates. Lets just agree if the famine didn't happen the population would be a lot higher

I read somewhere before that Ireland is the only country in the world where the population is smaller now than it was in the mid-19th century. Apart from the human aspect, the famine was a demographic disaster and nearly a knockout blow for the island. If the famine had not have happened and Ireland grew at the same rate other European countries did, we'd have a population somewhere around 25 or so million people easily.

Tony EH

Yurt! wrote: »

I read somewhere before that Ireland is the only country in the world where the population is smaller now than it was in the mid-19th century. Apart from the human aspect, the famine was a demographic disaster and nearly a knockout blow for the island. If the famine had not have happened and Ireland grew at the same rate other European countries did, we'd have a population somewhere around 25 or so million people easily.

That's ok if you're happy with people living like shit and at danger of being wiped out in a famine. I don't think such a thing would go down too well these days with a lot of folk though.

Simple fact is we have to sort out how we live in this country before things are in an ok state for more people to come live here.

Wibbs

orangerhyme wrote: »

I think the more people the better.
I'd like us to be a normal prosperous European country like Austria or Denmark, without boom and bust.

Eh... Austria and Denmark aren't immune to the boom/bust cycle. Nowhere is. It is a given in the western economic model.

Maybe in 10 years we'll be a normal, stable European country.

In 10 years time? The hell? We already are and ahead of many in a few ways and as far as the 20th century goes a helluva lot more stable and "normal" than many too. I'd love to hear what you consider normal and stable. Christ almighty, going with some people's perceptions you'd swear we were on the side of a Trocaire box 20 years ago, farming mud for food.

orangerhyme wrote: »

Exactly. The more, the better. More music, creativity, sports stars, innovation, ingenuity

The level of scarily simplistic thinking in evidence is quite impressive. You do realise "the more, the better" also inevitably means the "the more, the worse" too. It's Ireland and human nature and history and reality and not some wishful thinking Shangri La. Things are never that simple. But hey, whatever gets you through the night. Simple seems to work.

To my mind a lot of this stuff is that odd mix of the gargantuan levels of insecurity in the Irish psyche, with a large side order of deferring to with a tug of the forelock wanting to emulate the idea of "our betters" in societies than we perceive ours to be. And by god, though a charmingly naive one, it is most certainly a perception.

Tony EH

Wibbs wrote: »

The level of scarily simplistic thinking in evidence is quite impressive. You do realise "the more, the better" also inevitably means the "the more, the worse" too.

Exactly and I would posit that at present we simply don't have the infrastructure, nor the political will to tackle our major social issues, to support the "more the better" approach. And I say that as someone who generally wouldn't have a problem with inward migration.

But as we are at present, all I think we're doing is creating more competition for the limited resources and conditions that currently prevail...which, even at a cursory glance, cannot be considered a good thing.

orangerhyme

Wibbs wrote: »

Eh... Austria and Denmark aren't immune to the boom/bust cycle. Nowhere is. It is a given in the western economic model.
In 10 years time? The hell? We already are and ahead of many in a few ways and as far as the 20th century goes a helluva lot more stable and "normal" than many too. I'd love to hear what you consider normal and stable. Christ almighty, going with some people's perceptions you'd swear we were on the side of a Trocaire box 20 years ago, farming mud for food.

The level of scarily simplistic thinking in evidence is quite impressive. You do realise "the more, the better" also inevitably means the "the more, the worse" too. It's Ireland and human nature and history and reality and not some wishful thinking Shangri La. Things are never that simple. But hey, whatever gets you through the night. Simple seems to work.

To my mind a lot of this stuff is that odd mix of the gargantuan levels of insecurity in the Irish psyche, with a large side order of deferring to with a tug of the forelock wanting to emulate the idea of "our betters" in societies than we perceive ours to be. And by god, though a charmingly naive one, it is most certainly a perception.

We had 10 years of prosperity from 98 to 08 then a brutal recession caused by one of the worst economic crashes in history. Then strong growth from maybe 2012.
Prior to that we had very high unemployment, immigration, a 30 year civil war over the border, paramilitaries operating openly, a heroin epidemic in our capital city with extreme deprivation.
By "normal and stable" I mean the consistent growth most western European countries have had since WW2.
I think we have demographic advantages and being the only English speaking country in the EU means we should strive for better.
By 10 years we should be well out of post Covid economic effects, Dublin Metro is built, other infrastructure projects etc.

And yes more people means more talent

murpho999

Strumms wrote: »

It doesn’t work like that

More people to help fund existing services great. They need to be working.

But the extra population need more services themselves, more buses, trains, roads, post offices, hospitals etc... where does the billions for that come from ?

Why won't they be working?

You do realise that more people contribute to the state's revenues than take from it?

People will be working and contributing through taxation.

Economies of scale will bring benefits. More people do not need more trains tracks etc.
Post offices are almost a thing of the past like banks.
Technology is going to solve a lot of issues too as people will work from home more or in hubs.

Too many people are thinking with old mindsets.

orangerhyme

Tony EH wrote: »

Exactly and I would posit that at present we simply don't have the infrastructure, nor the political will to tackle our major social issues, to support the "more the better" approach. And I say that as someone who generally wouldn't have a problem with inward migration.

But as we are at present, all I think we're doing is creating more competition for the limited resources and conditions that currently prevail...which, even at a cursory glance, cannot be considered a good thing.

Our major limited resource is housing and healthcare. We had a labour shortage pre Covid, budget surplus, we export food, in time we'll export energy.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

orangerhyme wrote: »

I'd like our Regional cities especially Cork to be planned for Major growth.
Dublin's will run out of space soon enough.

We desperately need a proper economic counterbalance for Dublin. Dublin is almost the only show in town within the Republic, with a few regional cities (Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford) and then what we refer to as regional towns (Athlone, Sligo, Carlow, Dundalk, Tralee, Letterkenny) would have populations similiar to towns that no one has ever heard of on the continent.

Every urban area outside Dublin could double in size and still have a long way to go. It's about investing to attract investment and people to places outside of Dublin. Will it ever happen? Probably not. They've had National Spatial Strategies and Development Gateways to beat the band, pure pub talk.

orangerhyme

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater wrote: »

We desperately need a proper economic counterbalance for Dublin. Dublin is almost the only show in town within the Republic, with a few regional cities (Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford) and then what we refer to as regional towns (Athlone, Sligo, Carlow, Dundalk, Tralee, Letterkenny) would have populations similiar to towns that no one has ever heard of on the continent.

Every urban area outside Dublin could double in size and still have a long way to go.

Cork seems the best candidate for critical mass.
Population of Munster is 1.3 million.
It has airport, port, roads, rail.
Lots of room to expand in docks etc.
Good university and can attract graduates from Limerick, particularly if motorway is built.

BalcombeSt4

By modern standards that's still fairly low, London's population alone is almost double the number of the 26 county state.

Strumms

murpho999 wrote: »

Why won't they be working?

You do realise that more people contribute to the state's revenues than take from it?

People will be working and contributing through taxation.

Economies of scale will bring benefits. More people do not need more trains tracks etc.
Post offices are almost a thing of the past like banks.
Technology is going to solve a lot of issues too as people will work from home more or in hubs.

Too many people are thinking with old mindsets.

Because the law for a time prohibits it..

“You are not allowed to work until you have been waiting for 6 months for the IPO to issue its first decision (called the ‘first instance recommendation’) on your application. This applies to applications received on or after 18 January 2021. Before this, you had to have been waiting for 9 months.”


More people contribute, yes, simple mathematics would tell us... just as well.

More people need more trains, station/platform upgrades. Buses, everything.

Technology while making life easier isn’t going to enable or cushion the aftermath or effects of an open border practically.

Country is only so big, is Dublin to end up like London, Paris, Kolkata in terms of people living on top of each other and an ever growing need for high rise, high density living ? And a public transport system even less fit for purpose...?

All under the disingenuous guise of helping disadvantaged people when for the most part it’s a situation driven by big businesses and others to make the employment market more competitive, driving down wages, driving UP costs as far as the middle class go...

Nah. Not for me. All for giving a dig out but when it can’t be limited and restricted to suit the needs of the citizens and country, forget it.

Wibbs

orangerhyme wrote: »

We had 10 years of prosperity from 98 to 08 then a brutal recession caused by one of the worst economic crashes in history. Then strong growth from maybe 2012.
Prior to that we had very high unemployment, immigration, a 30 year civil war over the border, paramilitaries operating openly, a heroin epidemic in our capital city with extreme deprivation.
By "normal and stable" I mean the consistent growth most western European countries have had since WW2.

Again with the scarily simplistic view of economies, societies and history of same. The Marshall plan was a major factor in driving growth in the post war years and yet the 50's weren't so great for most of Europe, the 60's was a high point and then the 70's recession hit hard throughout with the UK having to look to the IMF during power cuts and currency woes. Among the nations that weathered that the best were the Scandinavians who had lower population densities. The 80's were an upswing in many places, though not equally across society(the UK had both "loadsamoney" and UB40 dolers) and not here, that upswing hit us in the 90's and then we went insane on easy credit. That came to a crashing end with a worldwide recession, one that we're still living with and one that hit everybody.

Terrorist groups were in play across Europe in Spain, Germany and Italy. Spain was a fascist state until the mid 70's with a failed military coup in the 80's while ETA were havin' the craic blowing up stuff. France had all sorts of social and political unrest in the 60's and 70's and it's hardly more politically stable than Ireland even today. And if you want "extreme deprivation" the slums of Naples, Paris, Barcelona and others were as bad or worse than anything we had here in period and are currently worse than we have here at present, with the added bonus of more ethnic divisions and strife because of "multiculturalism". For all our issues we didn't have anything like the Brixton riots or the reasons behind them.

I think we have demographic advantages and being the only English speaking country in the EU means we should strive for better.

Nebulous "demographic advantages". What are they then? Plus you're calling for changing our demographics. How does that work then?

And yes more people means more talent

You are avoiding the point of the negatives, social, economic and environmental like the very plague.

I get the strong impression that you look at Europe with rose tinted glasses and a few weekend jaunts have told you oh it's sooo much better and more diverse and interesting than poor oul Ireland. Like those councillors who saw bendy buses on taxpayer jaunts to the EU and thought wouldn't the be only woooonderful in Dublin. Only they weren't. God forbid we as a nation stop naively aping our "betters" and rather forge independent thinking about how to make the country better, more sustainable and less crowded for resources.

murpho999 wrote: »

Too many people are thinking with old mindsets.

And you're thinking with the same old mindset of unsustainable growth.

murpho999

Strumms wrote: »

Because the law for a time prohibits it..

“You are not allowed to work until you have been waiting for 6 months for the IPO to issue its first decision (called the ‘first instance recommendation’) on your application. This applies to applications received on or after 18 January 2021. Before this, you had to have been waiting for 9 months.”


More people contribute, yes, simple mathematics would tell us... just as well.

More people need more trains, station/platform upgrades. Buses, everything.

Technology while making life easier isn’t going to enable or cushion the aftermath or effects of an open border practically.

Country is only so big, is Dublin to end up like London, Paris, Kolkata in terms of people living on top of each other and an ever growing need for high rise, high density living ? And a public transport system even less fit for purpose...?

All under the disingenuous guise of helping disadvantaged people when for the most part it’s a situation driven by big businesses and others to make the employment market more competitive, driving down wages, driving UP costs as far as the middle class go...

Nah. Not for me. All for giving a dig out but when it can’t be limited and restricted to suit the needs of the citizens and country, forget it.

Why are you quoting rules that apply to asylum seekers from the International Protection Office?

They are a tiny amount of immigrants to the country and the vast majority of immigrants here come from EU, UK and other Western countries and they normally come because of their work, with the large tech presence here, so they will not be a burden on society but a contributor.

Also, I don't see what would be wrong if we did grow and had to build more infrastructure.
Better trains and buses will be a good thing.

As for high rise, if done right it can be nice and Ireland needs to build up to stop urban sprawl which is causing more problems and the issue of ownership of land needs to be tackled as that is what is causing the housing crises.

If that's not resolved then we will have problems

TomSweeney

beerguts wrote: »

If we are serious about climate change why would we be happy with population increase. Anh gains in national carbon emissions we make by adjusting our lifestyle will be lost by adding more people.
Also how many of that increase is worthless travellers and general wasters.

Thanked for the 1st part of the post, it is annoying that govt want huge pop increase yet on the other hand harp on about climate change.

The world is way overpopulated as it is, the solution to climate change, energy crisis, overfishing, meat industry etc is the same:

Population decreasing, this will take time, future generations need to have less children.

MyLove4Satan

Cal4567 wrote: »

And it's expected to hit another million or so over the course of the next decade and a half. I think that was more or less what that 2040 plan that the government produced a couple of years back, said. No one has a crystal ball and now throwing the aftermath of Covid in, and any economic fallout, who knows?

I'm not sure if it's an unpopular opinion, but I think we are still under populated for our land size. Always felt that was the EU view of us. Up to the start of Covid, there certainly feels that we've had more arriving than leaving.

The people are mostly in the wrong places. Our cities (including Dublin) are all too under-populated, while our countryside is one vast suburb. When you see places like rural Clare from the air, it is amazing that any kind of services - even postal - is provided to these O'Southforks.

Personally I think people who live in one-off housing - living beyond 5kms of a town with less than 1000 population - should have the tits taxed off them - if they are not actual working farmers and so on.

murpho999

Wibbs wrote: »

And you're thinking with the same old mindset of unsustainable growth.

No, I think Ireland is underpopulated at present for a country of its size and that lack of population over a century stifled our economy for a long time to a lack of demand and poor economies of scale.

I think if we had a couple more million people it would generate more.

I'm not promoting or suggesting wild population growths at levels seen in countries like India that only causes problems as impoverished people produce more impoverished people.

So for argument sake, if Donegal had had more people and there was more economic activity that generates demand then it would have made sense years ago to have a train service there, more housing and trains there.
The lack of population (and some poor management by local and national governments) meant that did not happen.

If the island had a population of 10-12 million over the last 100 years then it would be vastly different to what it is now and better for it.

Wibbs

murpho999 wrote: »

If the island had a population of 10-12 million over the last 100 years then it would be vastly different to what it is now and better for it.

Again wildly hypothetical and there are good reasons for saying that. For a start Ireland beyond a tiny pocket in the north east(which even if it continued would be dead in the water from the 70's on like similar areas in the UK and elsewhere)unlike other European nations didn't have an on the ground industrial revolution. It was and remained an agrarian rural society and what moves to the cities that did occur resulted in the largest slums in Europe at the time. There wasn't the work or resources to go around and that was for the population that had been halved by the famine and emigration.

But apparently as if by magic a population double the size would have been fine? It wouldn't. As I pointed out when social changes like famine and disease take out a large chunk of the population the survivors always make hay. This can be seen in the various great plagues of history. Fewer people than before, more resources and more work for them. Put it another way; imagine covid was as deadly as smallpox and killed a third of our population across all age groups last year. Beyond the cultural shock of that(which we'd get over as societies have before) would we still have nearly the same housing crisis? Would jobs be easier to get? Yet Ireland's position in the 19th and for most of the 20th century was such that this survivor bonus didn't happen. People still left and kept leaving well into the 1950's with another exodus in the 80's.

I'm not promoting or suggesting wild population growths at levels seen in countries like India that only causes problems as impoverished people produce more impoverished people.

More people here will mean more impoverished people too, who will also "produce" more impoverished people. A smaller population is easier to manage and sustain. This is doubly so in the modern world where so much business and finance is generated remotely. We don't require a homegrown population to sustain a homegrown economy to nearly the degree nations would have even 50, 100 years ago. By having a smaller population we require fewer resources and impact our environment a lot less. As I also pointed out the best thing someone can do for the environment is have one less kid. No amount of green bins and half arsed "recycling" can offset that and this is something that will become more and more important as time goes on. Ireland is ahead of the curve by already having a low population density, we should not be seeking to rush to destroy that lead.

orangerhyme

Wibbs wrote: »

Again with the scarily simplistic view of economies, societies and history of same. The Marshall plan was a major factor in driving growth in the post war years and yet the 50's weren't so great for most of Europe, the 60's was a high point and then the 70's recession hit hard throughout with the UK having to look to the IMF during power cuts and currency woes. Among the nations that weathered that the best were the Scandinavians who had lower population densities. The 80's were an upswing in many places, though not equally across society(the UK had both "loadsamoney" and UB40 dolers) and not here, that upswing hit us in the 90's and then we went insane on easy credit. That came to a crashing end with a worldwide recession, one that we're still living with and one that hit everybody.

Terrorist groups were in play across Europe in Spain, Germany and Italy. Spain was a fascist state until the mid 70's with a failed military coup in the 80's while ETA were havin' the craic blowing up stuff. France had all sorts of social and political unrest in the 60's and 70's and it's hardly more politically stable than Ireland even today. And if you want "extreme deprivation" the slums of Naples, Paris, Barcelona and others were as bad or worse than anything we had here in period and are currently worse than we have here at present, with the added bonus of more ethnic divisions and strife because of "multiculturalism". For all our issues we didn't have anything like the Brixton riots or the reasons behind them.

Nebulous "demographic advantages". What are they then? Plus you're calling for changing our demographics. How does that work then?

You are avoiding the point of the negatives, social, economic and environmental like the very plague.

I get the strong impression that you look at Europe with rose tinted glasses and a few weekend jaunts have told you oh it's sooo much better and more diverse and interesting than poor oul Ireland. Like those councillors who saw bendy buses on taxpayer jaunts to the EU and thought wouldn't the be only woooonderful in Dublin. Only they weren't. God forbid we as a nation stop naively aping our "betters" and rather forge independent thinking about how to make the country better, more sustainable and less crowded for resources.

And you're thinking with the same old mindset of unsustainable growth.

demographic advantages = youngest population in Europe, 3rd highest birhrate. Nothing "nebulous" about that. Wider tax base compensating for dependents. Look at population pyramids of Spain and Italy for an example of a demographic timebomb.

Terrorist activity in Spain, Italy and Germany was tiny compared to us. The only comparison would be the Balkan countries which I'd hardly describe as normal and prosperous.
By "normal and prosperous and stable" I mean countries like Austria, Scandanavia, BeNeLux, West Germany, Switzerland as opposed to dictatorships or economic basketcases, that should be self-explanatory.

I think as long as we reasonable economic growth and are attracting multinationals, our population will continue to grow at a higher rate than the rest of Europe.
Brexit will possibly accelerate this.
The mulitnationals here hire from across Europe which makes us attractive in the first place and gives us an advantage over other countries with low corporate tax.

Housing is a huge issue we need to solve though.

Wibbs

orangerhyme wrote: »

Terrorist activity in Spain, Italy and Germany was tiny compared to us. The only comparison would be the Balkan countries which I'd hardly describe as normal and prosperous.

The Balkans were significantly more violent flashpoints than the North with tens of thousands more dead and over a much shorter period of time.

By "normal and prosperous and stable" I mean countries like Austria, Scandanavia, BeNeLux, West Germany, Switzerland as opposed to dictatorships or economic basketcases, that should be self-explanatory.

Switzerland is so different to the rest of Europe as to be almost a law unto themselves. Looking at places like Germany and Austria on the stability fronts over the 20th century Ireland was way ahead. We kinda missed the whole WW2 and its aftermath for a start. And an actual right wing politic supported right down to today in Austria. Someone born in say 1920 would have had a more stable and "normal" life in Ireland than in much of Europe. Plus in every single case of recession all those nations with the possible exception of the Swiss were hit hard. Their "normal and prosperous and stable" larger populations didn't stop that. Oh and the "normal and prosperous and stable" Scandinavian nations of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland all have lower population densities than Ireland, the Danes being the odd man out there. There's little link between population density and economy, or stability, or whatever passes for normality.

Housing is a huge issue we need to solve though.

Fewer people makes that a whole lot simpler and carries fewer costs economically and environmentally. But again you are just on the one track of more people = better and avoid like the plague the negatives that come with that.

murpho999

Wibbs wrote: »

Again wildly hypothetical and there are good reasons for saying that. For a start Ireland beyond a tiny pocket in the north east(which even if it continued would be dead in the water from the 70's on like similar areas in the UK and elsewhere)unlike other European nations didn't have an on the ground industrial revolution. It was and remained an agrarian rural society and what moves to the cities that did occur resulted in the largest slums in Europe at the time. There wasn't the work or resources to go around and that was for the population that had been halved by the famine and emigration.

But apparently as if by magic a population double the size would have been fine? It wouldn't. As I pointed out when social changes like famine and disease take out a large chunk of the population the survivors always make hay. This can be seen in the various great plagues of history. Fewer people than before, more resources and more work for them. Put it another way; imagine covid was as deadly as smallpox and killed a third of our population across all age groups last year. Beyond the cultural shock of that(which we'd get over as societies have before) would we still have nearly the same housing crisis? Would jobs be easier to get? Yet Ireland's position in the 19th and for most of the 20th century was such that this survivor bonus didn't happen. People still left and kept leaving well into the 1950's with another exodus in the 80's.

You don’t have to keep going on about “hypothetical” situations.
I’ve been talking about what Ireland would be like today if the famine hadnot happened so of course it’s hypothetical as I’m trying to show that the country would have been vastly different to what it is today but then again it seems ok for you to argue with hypothetical situations yourself.

The point in that if the famine had not happened then this country would be vastly different to what it is today. Looking at trends in Europe at the time where most countries at least double I think it’s being conservative to say that that Ireland’s population would have been 12-15 million today if the famine and all that followed did not happen. I have even read some estimates of a population of 20-40 million.
Do you really think that Ireland would be worse off today if that happened?
Who knows how Ireland’s history would have been different too. I think the way things turned out that the low population of Ireland in the 20th century did not help the economy and the country suffered through lack of demand and investment, being too agricultural, emigration. Eventually it was Europe and embracing that market instead of relying on UK that led to real economic growth and the complete turnaround that has turned Ireland into a very successful economy today.

More people here will mean more impoverished people too, who will also "produce" more impoverished people. A smaller population is easier to manage and sustain. This is doubly so in the modern world where so much business and finance is generated remotely. We don't require a homegrown population to sustain a homegrown economy to nearly the degree nations would have even 50, 100 years ago. By having a smaller population we require fewer resources and impact our environment a lot less. As I also pointed out the best thing someone can do for the environment is have one less kid. No amount of green bins and half arsed "recycling" can offset that and this is something that will become more and more important as time goes on. Ireland is ahead of the curve by already having a low population density, we should not be seeking to rush to destroy that lead.

I really just think you’re wrong on all of this.
Ireland’s economy has changed over the last 30 years and is now attracting lots of large tech corporations that in turn generate employment. This in turn attracts quality people to come to Ireland to work and live here. This is generating more demand for infrastructure and services and that has increased over the last 20 years and as a result the country is better.
Roads are better, transport (albeit coming from a low base) has improved but still not there yet. Housing is a problem and as I said on other posts the government needs to change the approach to land and its ownership. People who hoard land need to be taxed in order for them to free up land, lower prices and allow more supply.
I think Ireland could easily cope with an increased population over the next 20 years and would benefit from it as it has been underpopulated for so long.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Yurt! wrote: »

I read somewhere before that Ireland is the only country in the world where the population is smaller now than it was in the mid-19th century. Apart from the human aspect, the famine was a demographic disaster and nearly a knockout blow for the island. If the famine had not have happened and Ireland grew at the same rate other European countries did, we'd have a population somewhere around 25 or so million people easily.

And if the famine genocide hadn’t happened, we’d have a much better distributed population than we do now. Not the alpha city set up there is now. It’s always fascinating to wonder what that might look like for Ireland. I’m not one of the doom and gloom merchants (of which there are many on this thread), I have to say. I think it’d be a good thing.

biko

murpho999 wrote: »

No, I think Ireland is underpopulated at present for a country of its size and that lack of population over a century stifled our economy for a long time to a lack of demand and poor economies of scale.

Can you give an example on a country with a good population density that you think Ireland should aspire to?

Yellow_Fern

murpho999 wrote: »

I think Ireland could easily cope with an increased population over the next 20 years and would benefit from it as it has been underpopulated for so long.

I dont agree. It will make our carbon emissions reductions much harder to achieve, which I might add are designed as total targets not per capita targets. I really struggle with the idea that Ireland is underpopulated. There is extremely little wild places in Ireland. People live nearly everywhere. We have an overall modest density per km2 but that is due to dispersed settlement patterns that are not allowed in many countries like Germany, Slovakia etc. We just need smarter planning, not millions more people.

dxhound2005

In the year 2000 the population was 3.783 million. In the Census year of 2016 it had increased to 4.726 million. Even with that increase, the Census recorded vast numbers of vacant properties.

In the Property Tax stats something like 574,000 properties are in the hands of people who are paying the tax on two or more properties. If there is nowhere for people to live, people will leave for abroad, and people from abroad will not come to Ireland.


https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp1hii/cp1hii/vac/#:~:text=There%20were%20183%2C312%20other%20vacant,per%20cent%20of%20vacant%20dwellings.

Yellow_Fern

dxhound2005 wrote: »

In the year 2000 the population was 3.783 million. In the Census year of 2016 it had increased to 4.726 million. Even with that increase, the Census recorded vast numbers of vacant properties.

In the Property Tax stats something like 574,000 properties are in the hands of people who are paying the tax on two or more properties. If there is nowhere for people to live, people will leave for abroad, and people from abroad will not come to Ireland.


https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp1hii/cp1hii/vac/#:~:text=There%20were%20183%2C312%20other%20vacant,per%20cent%20of%20vacant%20dwellings.

This is true. The housing crisis will also discourage people moving here. If the housing crisis was solved overnight more people would just move here and it would be return. It is as simple as that. Remember the number of children born to women here dropped below replacement level of 2.1 in the early 1990s. Inward migration is extremely elastic.

Fighting Irish

Aslong as GDP is high, I'm happy

murpho999

biko wrote: »

Can you give an example on a country with a good population density that you think Ireland should aspire to?

I think the likes of Germany (232 per Sq KM), Switzerland (207 per Sq KM) & Luxemboug's (237per Sq KM) levels are about right.

According to Wikipedia Ireland is at 70.

Link


A good balance and not as densely packed as Netherlands or even the UK.

dxhound2005

Even in the UK not much of the land is covered by buildings and roads. About 1% is houses and their gardens.

More than half of the UK land area is farmland (fields, orchards etc), just over a third might be termed natural or semi-natural (moors, heathland, natural grassland etc), a little under 6% is built on (roads, buildings, airports, quarries etc) and 2.5% is green urban (parks, gardens, golf courses, sports pitches etc).9 Nov 2017

Strumms

murpho999 wrote: »

No, I think Ireland is underpopulated at present for a country of its size and that lack of population over a century stifled our economy for a long time to a lack of demand and poor economies of scale.

I think if we had a couple more million people it would generate more.

I'm not promoting or suggesting wild population growths at levels seen in countries like India that only causes problems as impoverished people produce more impoverished people.

So for argument sake, if Donegal had had more people and there was more economic activity that generates demand then it would have made sense years ago to have a train service there, more housing and trains there.
The lack of population (and some poor management by local and national governments) meant that did not happen.

If the island had a population of 10-12 million over the last 100 years then it would be vastly different to what it is now and better for it.

10-12 million ?

Errr right, the better for it ? If you say so !

The last census showed our population having quite rapidly grown from ..


1986 - 5.1 million.

2016 - 6.66 million.

In 30 years, the country population has risen roughly by 1.56 million people. a 23.42% increase in 30 years..

That’s population growth at dangerous levels....

dxhound2005

In the same period the population of Hong Kong increased by 2 million to over 7 million.

The land area is less than half that of Co Louth.