The Irish Planning Institute (IPI), the all-island professional membership body for spatial planners, has said that resources within the profession are becoming increasingly stretched and it has called on the Government to prioritise commitments given to support the training of more planners at home and encourage skilled talent internationally to come work in Ireland.

The organisation has said that until this skills shortage is addressed, Ireland will continue to fall short on the delivery of crucial infrastructure projects, achieving the national climate objective and providing housing to meet the needs of the growing population.

Addressing delegates at the IPI’s Autumn Conference on the theme of ‘Infrastructure and Planning’ at the Gibson Hotel, Dublin, Institute President Gavin Lawlor drew attention to the unprecedented demand for planners and the impact an under resourced planning profession creates with growing infrastructure gaps across a range of areas.

Commenting Gavin Lawlor, said, “Demand for planning professionals has risen sharply over recent years and it continues to grow. There are unfilled vacancies across the public, private and semi-state sectors and organisations are hiring planners where there’s never been planners directly employed before. The sector also faces the prospect of a retirement cliff edge with many who helped implement the 2000 Act coming to the end of their careers.

“It is vital that we train more planners here at home, get Irish qualified planners back and encourage planners who work internationally to come work in Ireland. For this to happen all of Government must recognise the urgency of the situation with planners being added to the Department of Enterprise’s Critical Skills List and the Department of Public Expenditure adjusting their rules so prior international experience is recognised for new entrant public servants.

“The Ministerial Action Plan on Planning Resources must also be published and implemented as a priority in partnership with the Institute and those training and employing planners. The resourcing challenge can only be addressed by learning directly from the experiences of planning professionals who work across every area of the sector.”

The IPI President also highlighted the poor infrastructure that exists in many communities across the country and the challenges that planners and policy makers face ensuring that our legislation and guidelines are fit to deliver the improvements the country needs.

He said: “With significant infrastructure deficits across a range of sectors including electricity, water and transport, the planning, development and delivery of critical projects is coming under increasing public and political scrutiny. This infrastructure is essential to allow us to maintain our competitiveness, protect our climate and deliver on our biodiversity aims, as well as delivering much needed housing.

“How we plan for infrastructure must change. For example, the forthcoming revised National Planning Framework should identify corridors for infrastructure, such as road, railways and powerlines, that should be preserved while considering constraints around biodiversity and sensitive landscapes.

“This also means publishing overdue updates to statutory planning guidelines affecting everything from wind energy (which date from 2006) and to childcare infrastructure (last updated in 2001).”

“Only by addressing these gaps and the resourcing issue can planners get back to doing what we should be doing, planning new infrastructure, tackling climate change and the biodiversity crisis and focusing on good design and outcomes.”