Project Ireland 2040: Business as usual or a new dawn?

The National Planning Framework published in February 2018 marks a new departure for planning in an Irish context. It is ambitious in scope and aims to integrate public policy horizontally and vertically across government departments and at multiple scales. The regional tier of government is empowered, and new regional policy tools in the form of the RSES and MASP have been introduced. For the first time capital investment is being closely aligned with spatial planning. Nonetheless, despite attempts at central government level to ‘de-politicise’ the policy development phase, implementation at the local level faces a number of significant challenges.