The Government was today urged to redraw the National Spatial Strategy to cope with the country's rapid population growth over the next decade.
Henk van der Kamp, Irish Planning Institute president, called for new developments to be spread around rather than concentrating solely on greater Dublin.
He told the institute's annual conference in Sligo: "We need to review the National Spatial Strategy to consider the real possibility that Ireland may return to a population of 7.25 million — close to the eight million that it had in pre-Famine days."
Adding that Ireland was not ready for such growth, he said: "A key message is emerging that the National Spatial Strategy is out of date.
"If the growth anticipation is correct we need to be prepared for a more radical change in the Irish scale and pattern of development than we are used to from the past and we need to be prepared for more radical planning solutions."
Mr van der Kamp said steps had to be taken to deal with the pressures of rapid economic development while he also insisted that one-off rural housing should be stopped.
He claimed residential, industrial, infrastructural and other development necessary to accommodate a bigger population should be spread in planned development throughout the country rather than concentrating growth around Dublin.
And he pointed out that one-off housing in the countryside was not an answer to the situation, while towns and villages away from greater Dublin had to be identified as key growth centres.
"Our villages are an underused and unappreciated resource which we can ill-afford to lose. These villages provide the essential social and commercial nucleus that we need to develop balanced communities," he said.
Mr van der Kamp outlined five compelling reasons for a new strategy.
When the NSS was prepared the full 2002 Census results were not available. New detailed figures will be available soon through the 2006 census.
The optimistic projection of 5.3 million population by 2020 underlines the fact that the population projections on which the NSS is based are too low and need to be revised.
More money is available for the financing of strategic infrastructure projects than was anticipated.
There is more scope to achieve a re-balancing of population outside the greater Dublin area.
New Government policies announced since the NSS was published, such as decentralisation policy and rural housing.
PA