Land was zoned to cater for 4m extra people

The Celtic Tiger property bubble was fuelled by “endemic corruption” in a planning system which zoned enough land at the height of the boom to cater for a doubling of the entire population — up to 8m people.

A review of planning across 34 city and county councils by An Taisce found that in 2008, as Ireland stood on the brink of economic collapse, 42,000 hectares were zoned for residential purposes — enough for 4m extra people on top of the 4.4m population at that time.

This does not take into account thousands of hectares of land zoned for mixed-use, industrial, retail, commercial, and other uses.