Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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1568. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if the revised population targets as per the revised NPF have been formally communicated to local authorities. [42747/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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On 20 June 2023, Government gave approval to commence the process of undertaking the First Revision of the National Planning Framework. The National Planning Framework (NPF), is the whole-of-Government strategy for strategic planning and sustainable development of our urban and rural areas to 2040, with the core objectives of securing balanced regional development and a sustainable ‘compact growth’ approach to the form and pattern of future development.

The revision process was finalised and approved by Government and the Oireachtas in April 2025. The revised NPF will directly inform the wider Government policy agenda, the actions of a broad range of public and private bodies, including homebuilders, the renewable energy sector, infrastructure agencies and domestic and international investors.

A number of key drivers of change in Ireland were a significant focus for the revision process, and the final framework document sets a transformational agenda to cater for the need to plan for a population of between 6.1 to 6.3 million people by 2040, and to plan for approximately 50,000 additional households per annum over that period. This reflects the latest research and modelling by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), which forecasts substantial population growth over the next decade, and also accounts for unmet demand and need. The Revised NPF, with the subsequent provision of updated planned housing growth requirements at a local authority level, aims to ensure that housing supply meets both new demand and addresses existing need, creating a sustainable future for housing in Ireland.

In addition to accounting for the ESRI’s baseline projection of 6.1m people by 2040, the NPF also includes provision for strategic planning for up to 6.3 million people by 2040 (the ESRI high migration scenario), which is required to be aligned with strategic planning for Transport Orientated Development (TOD) in and around Ireland’s five cities to support the delivery of new sustainable communities at brownfield and greenfield locations along existing or planned high capacity public transport corridors.

The revised NPF provides the basis for the review and updating of regional strategies and local authority development plans to reflect matters such as updated housing figures, projected jobs growth and renewable energy capacity allocations, including through the zoning of land for residential, employment and a range of other purposes. The implementation of the Planning and Development Act 2024 will also be closely aligned with the implementation of the revised NPF, with updated regional strategies and new 10-year development plans required to reflect the revised NPF as they are prepared.

Given the urgent need to ensure that the updated housing requirements can be incorporated into the planning system as quickly as possible to address housing need and demand, the next key step now that the NPF Revision process has been completed is to address the spatial distribution of the housing requirement by local authority area through the provision of updated planned housing requirements on a local authority by local authority basis.

The allocation by local authority will be based on a balanced methodology that factors in the level of housing demand arising, performance in terms of recent housing delivery and capacity, while ensuring adherence to the policy parameters of the NPF strategy. Work on this stage is currently being finalised.

This will result in the need to plan for more housing delivery than the capacity currently available within development plans across the country.

I wrote to all local authority Chief Executives to advise that city and county development plans across the country will need to be reviewed and updated to align with the Revised NPF as quickly as possible. Local authorities have been requested to urgently consider the most suitable locations for new housing development in their administrative areas, taking into account where delivery is most likely to occur and where infrastructure and services are available, or may be readily provided.

Implementing the NPF revisions in this manner will ensure that future decisions in relation to planning applications can be made in a robust and efficient manner, assisted by the statutory decision-making timelines contained within the Planning and Development Act 2024.