What abundance is not
A new and different way to solve Ireland's problems
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What’s gone wrong in Ireland? Why are the things we need, like housing and electricity, so expensive?
The left blames neoliberalism. They say underfunding and a lack of government intervention is the problem.
The right blames the government and its spending. They say there’s too much of both.
Abundance is a new and different diagnosis of Ireland’s problems. For those of us who buy into the idea of abundance, the key word is scarcity. We think shortages of real things – like houses, energy, water, roads, trains and schools – is what’s gone wrong in Ireland.
In politics, a lot of resources are spent treating the symptoms of Ireland’s shortages rather than the causes. And that’s understandable, because shortages cause real pain for people in the here and now. But if we want to solve these issues for good, we need to determine and treat the root cause.
That’s what abundance is about: finding the root cause of shortages and fixing them.
Unlocking supply
How do we fix shortages? It depends on the specific shortage we’re talking about. Sometimes it’s about removing regulatory hurdles. Sometimes it’s about beefing up the state so it can deliver better.
Take the Greater Dublin Drainage project. This new wastewater treatment plan in north Dublin was granted planning permission in 2019. It was badly needed to enable new homebuilding, and to protect the environment. The Ringsend treatment plant was already operating 40% over capacity, with sewage effluent regularly flowing into Dublin bay.
In 2020, a group of campaigners took a judicial review against it, with concerns about the impacts on water quality and the environment. This led to a 5-year delay in the project. The delay, plus inflation and supply-chain shocks in intervening years, meant the project cost doubled from €650 million to €1.3bn.
Can we rebalance our planning system so that the concerns of small groups of citizens can be addressed faster, allowing us to fix shortages?
In transport, the diagnosis is different. Some of it is about the state stepping out of its own way by streamlining planning. But it also requires us to make the state stronger, ensuring it’s resourced to deliver. In the case of Metrolink, this means the state directly hiring more rail experts, and even creating a whole new body dedicated to delivering this megaproject.
What abundance is not
Some people may think abundance evades the real issues holding Ireland back. In housing, a lot of debate centers on who should build and finance new homes. It’s an important question, and people on different parts of the political spectrum have different answers.
Wherever you fall, it’s worth noting that every major political party expects roughly a 50/50 split between public and private delivery. Reforms that make building easier impacts all these homes.
As we’ve mentioned previously, a recent proposal to renovate social housing in the city centre came to €700,000 per apartment. That’s on serviced land owned by the state. Our current way of homebuilding is slow and expensive, no matter who delivers it. Regardless of how you want housing delivered, making it faster and more affordable is critical.
Others may think that abundance is a pipe dream that ignores ecological limits. Won’t all this building damage the environment? But abundance is not an anti-environment cause.
Abundance is about using our country’s precious resources more efficiently. One example is the focus of the abundance movement on building higher-density towns. Higher density reduces sprawl and enables more land to be given over to nature. It also allows for walkable cities that reduce transport-based emissions. Plus, these places are generally nicer to live in for humans. It’s a win-win-win.
But these beautiful, high-density towns won’t exist unless we make it easier to build them.
The same goes for the focus in the abundance movement on clean energy. Cheap, plentiful energy is essential for a post-shortage future. In Ireland, ramping up wind energy is a key part of this, yet over a dozen wind farm projects have been waiting more than a year for planning decisions. The abundance worldview is that we need to find out why and urgently fix it.
An abundant Ireland
All roads in Ireland lead towards fixing shortages.
If you want a fairer country where everyone can afford a home, you need to fix housing and infrastructure shortages. If you want a more prosperous country with more foreign direct investment, you need to fix those exact same shortages.
Equally if you want a climate-neutral country, you need to fix shortages of wind farms and grid infrastructure.
Getting serious about abundance, about diagnosing and fixing shortages, is the answer to a lot of Ireland’s most pressing problems. And we have lots of ideas for how to get there.
Very interesting, Sarah, thank you. There is a lot to think about in the abundance argument and much of it is persuasive. In my view Ireland’s fundamental problem is to do with structure. Our social structure isn't based on the rationale or infused with the type of discipline required to allow things to occur in the way they should. It lacks what I would call a tectonic sense.
The strength of much of Progress Ireland’s analysis of why we are falling short in delivering many areas of critical infrastructure lies in its 'root cause' approach. The recent focus on abundance seems to be bringing an unnecessarily abstract and contradictory approach to dealing with issues of shortage. It seems a bit like some American ism that suggests if we cant change the world let's change the language. Keep up the good work on addressing root causes!!!