Prospects for Irish Regions and Counties: Scenarios and Implications Economic and Social Research Institute ( ESRI) Research Series No.70

The ESRI research, published today, provides projections for regions and counties across Ireland up to the year 2040, examining what will happen if current spatial planning patterns continue (known as the Business as Usual approach), and what would happen in a range of alternative scenarios. Under the alternative scenarios, the broad regional distribution of population, jobs and employment growth has been considered. The research and modelling, carried out by the ESRI as part of this research project, has been used to inform the growth strategy for the NPF, with the Business as Usual approach providing a baseline from which the other alternative future scenarios were developed. From this an optimal scenario was considered and applied to the NPF.