A growing shortage of planning professionals in Ireland will hamper the future delivery of key infrastructure projects.
That is the warning from the Irish Planning Institute (IPI), which has called for the Government to give priority to commitments given to support the training of planners in this country.
It also wants to see efforts made to encourage more planners to come here from abroad to work.
The IPI said until the 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.
"Demand for planning professionals has risen sharply over recent years and it continues to grow," said IPI President, Gavin Lawlor, at the organisation's Autumn conference today.
"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," he said.
"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," he added.
Mr Lawlor added that planners must be added to the Department of Enterprise's critical skills list to allow more to come here from abroad.
The rules must also be adjusted he said to allow previous international experience to be recognised for those planners entering the public service.
"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," he said.
"The resourcing challenge can only be addressed by learning directly from the experiences of planning professionals who work across every area of the sector," he added.
Mr Lawlor also said that how we plan for infrastructure must change, particularly given the pressures to deliver new housing, energy, water and transport projects, which maintaining competitiveness and protecting the climate.
"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," he said.
"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)," he added.
