Ireland's Revised National Planning Framework

Introduction

Following a 2 year revision process, the Irish Government has approved the Revised National Planning Framework (NPF) which, attempts to ‘create the conditions for accelerated housing delivery in Ireland’. Interestingly, this aim is a change in wording to a more single minded focus on housing compared to the original 2018 National Planning Framework, which had the more general aim to  ‘…ensure proper planning and sustainable development’. 

The primary motivators for revising the 2018 NPF were: population growth and the associated housing requirement; accompanying changing needs for infrastructure; and Ireland’s ongoing climate commitments.

In October 2025, the CIOB submitted a response to the Draft Revision of the NPF (the Draft). In it we argued that the vision expressed in the Draft is the correct one. As a small island nation with a growing population, a housing affordability and supply crisis, and a prosperous economy characterised by a booming urban jobs market, Ireland’s spatial development should be based on compact growth, and regional connectivity as the Draft outlines.

Indeed, the majority of what the Draft outlines is eminently sensible, sustainable built environment policy. The issues we raised focus on the Draft's lack of measurable deliverables and specific processes whereby its aspirations are to be realised. Below we consider two of our main observations  (‘We Asked’) and the Government’s responses (‘They Answered’). 

Compact Growth

We asked

While we agree with compact growth (CG) as the basis for future development in Ireland, we argued that the lack of clear targets mitigate against its success. The Draft’s intention of ‘Targeting a greater proportion (40%) of future housing development to be within the existing ‘footprint’ of built-up areas’ is simply too vague to be enforced or measured. 

We suggested some guiding questions that may facilitate clarifying compact growth targets: 

How many housing units? Does this mean planning permissions? Commencements? Completions?

Over what time scale? 

What does ‘targeting’ mean? Is it different to delivering? Presumably ‘targeting is being used to allow for flexibility on the proportion of building that can be defined as ‘compact growth’. If so under what circumstances is the target flexible? If the development sector claim viability challenges with parcels of land in existing settlements is this sufficient to relax the target? 

What metrics will be used to quantitatively assess the delivery of this target? 

They answered

‘In order to understand compact growth trends, development must be monitored across cities and towns in a consistent way. A new approach to monitoring urban growth will be developed, focussing on the built-up footprint of existing settlements comprising areas that are subject to existing urban land uses and the additional ‘land take’ associated with development outside of the built-up footprint. A tool is being developed to track and compare urban development trends across the main urban settlements.

Reflection

So, while this is not a solution to the lack of clarity, the response does show that the Government is aware of the issue and are taking some measures to address it. Whether they will be effective, and what this tool is, is yet to be seen.

Generally speaking, we were critical of the Revision’s tendency to point to future projects rather than using the Revision as an opportunity to deal with pressing issues now. However, we do welcome acknowledgement of the issues raise in relation to the measurement of compact growth.

Transport Orientated Development (TOD)

We asked:

The Draft, like the NPF before it, has lofty ambitions for TOD. This is commendable. 

However, as is the case with compact growth, the details of how TOD will be delivered are lacking. Again, given the 6 years of evidence we have since the publication of the NPF, and the continued dominance of car-dependent, peripheral new development in Ireland, this issue needs to be addressed in the Draft. 

Despite TOD having been national planning policy priority for over 6 years, Ireland is still pursuing large scale transport infrastructure projects without giving due consideration to the details of how these projects will deliver housing, and their potential to deliver housing at the genesis of the business case stage. 

For instance, the business case for MetroLink states that it ‘…will encourage compact growth development in housing’. Neither the National Transport Authority or the Department of Housing Planning and Local Government (DHPLG) lack the vision for TOD. However, neither organisation has explained the specific processes or governance structures whereby TOD will take place. Unless this detail is provided, and the structures are put in place to execute TOD, it will remain aspirational, and the governance of infrastructure projects will remain siloed from the governance of housing delivery. 

A joined up approach to active land management and land value capture by a public authority on parcels of land adjoining new transport infrastructure such as Metrolink are a proven way of ensuring TOD actually happens. In our view, creating the governance arrangements – namely a formalised role for housing delivery within the NTA – is essential to making the TOD aspirations in the Draft credible.

They answered

‘Statutory arrangements between spatial and transport planning in the Greater Dublin Area will be extended to other cities.

The Government will work to establish the necessary institutional and funding arrangements to support the development and accelerated delivery of Transport Orientated Development at suitable location in conjunction with the ongoing programme of investment in the public transport network’.

Reflection

This is encouraging as it indicate that the Government understands the importance of governance arrangements in order to operationalise high level concepts such as transport oriented development. The original Draft suffered from a lack of clarity around joined up working arrangements and lines of responsibility. The extension of statutory arrangements between spatial and transport planning to other cities apart from Dublin is encouraging in this context. Nevertheless, the Revision still talks about establishing the necessary institutional and funding arrangements rather than clarifying what those arrangements are and how they will be funded. This is disappointing as surely the Revision is the opportunity to clarify these matters.

Conclusion

One of the most frequent observations we hear from our members about their experience of the planning process, is that the lack of clarity causes delays. Different interpretations of ambiguous wording, can be the difference between a project getting the go ahead, or being delayed. In our response we urged the Government to use the Revised NPF as an opportunity to use clear, development-friendly language so that the construction sector can get on with delivering the country’s housing and infrastructure ambitions.