It is the 25-year plan that will see billions of euro pumped into transport, jobs, education, health, roads, railways and airports.
Tomorrow the Government, through its Ireland 2040 initiative will outline how it wants the country to look in the decades ahead when the population is expected to have grown by one million people.
In that time an extra 550,000 homes will be required, while there will be a need to create an additional 660,000 jobs.
And so the Government, in a bid to answer where we will live, how we will travel, where we will be taught, and what services will be available for the sick and elderly, has come up with a national planning framework dubbed ‘Ireland 2040 — Our Plan’.
In the first 10 years of this forward-thinking plan, €115bn will be invested in infrastructure, including a new national children’s hospital, an expansion of the Dart as well as the building of schools, social housing and Garda stations.
And what for rural Ireland? Country dwellers have already seen the boarding up of post offices, Garda stations and smaller bank branches.
They have been stymied by a lack of connectivity and the reneging on the introduction of broadband. They have seen farmers seek part-time work elsewhere out of necessity and the young generation move away to third-level education never to return.
It is unsurprising that this exasperated group is not holding out much hope for what could simply become an updated version of many failed strategic plans of past governments.
By Elaine Loughlin
Political Reporter Irish Examiner
