Rural Policy Review of Ireland 2026

1. Assessment and recommendations

Introduction

Irish rural policy documents consistently highlight the need for place-sensitive strategies that recognise the diversity of rural contexts and stress locally designed and implemented solutions. Ireland’s approach to rural development and the national Our Rural Future (ORF) strategy align with the core tenets of the OECD rural development framework. It functions as a comprehensive co-ordination platform for over 170 policy measures, managed by a wide range of government departments including the standalone rural department DRCDG. The policy’s structure is built around eight core themes, each addressing a critical dimension of rural life and sustainability. These themes can be summarised broadly across three pillars:

• Where you live should not limit what you can do: A large number of priorities focus on connecting people through high-speed broadband, connecting them professionally through a network of remote working hubs, and enabling remote work as a long-term option through policy frameworks. 

• Making rural towns places people are excited to live in: Several initiatives, such as Town Centre First, seek to enable communities to rebuild their main streets, provide better transportation options, and expand access to housing.

• Creating resilience for the future: There are also forward-looking measures addressing the green transition and creating a future for farming that is profitable and good for the planet.

These pillars are welcome, but their transformation from strategy into on-the-ground reality is largely dependent on the coherence and capacity of Ireland’s subnational governance framework. This chapter provides insights into how Ireland can strengthen implementation, co-ordination, and place-sensitive delivery within its whole-of-government approach to rural policy. It includes recommendations that outline a pathway for the next phase of Irish rural policy.

The chapter is organised into two sections. The first section provides an overview of the strengths and opportunities presented by the approach to rural development in Ireland. ORF and the broader approach to rural development is assessed through the lens of the OECD Rural Well-Being Framework and the OECD Principles on Rural Policy (2019) referred throughout as OECD standards. The second section offers recommendations proposing concrete steps that are actionable within Ireland’s institutional framework (Table 1.3). In broad terms, the recommendations centre around strengthening economic development, increasing the focus on horizontal and vertical co-ordination mechanisms, capacity-building, and the development of strategic intelligence.

Assessment

Unlike most OECD countries that are grappling with rural ageing and population decline, Ireland benefits from a unique demographic advantage. This represents a significant asset in the form of a strong potential labour force that could drive future economic development if effectively supported. Ireland’s rural population growth rate of 1.19% between 2001 and 2021 was the second-highest in the OECD. The country has the lowest old-age dependency ratio among benchmark countries, indicating a proportionally large working-age population compared to the elderly. This demographic vitality is fuelled by both a high natural increase and a recent rebound in migration inflows. Ireland’s historically strong fertility rates have been a key driver; a rate of 2.1 is needed to ensure a stable population, providing context for the country's demographic strength.

The primary economic challenge facing rural Ireland is the performance gap between regions with close ties to urban centres and those that are more remote. Proximity to cities drives economic success, whilst remote areas often lag in productivity and income growth. Figure 1.1 compares key indicators for different types of rural regions. Environmental pressures in Ireland are disproportionately centred in its rural areas, where the economy is more closely tied to land use and natural resources. Per capita GHG emissions are high in rural regions, a reflection of the area's economic structure and settlement patterns. These emissions are primarily driven by agriculture and transport. The state of Ireland's water quality is a major concern, with 46% of its surface waters currently in poor condition due to nutrient runoff from the expansion of dairy herds and underinvestment in wastewater treatment facilities and the presence of failing septic systems.

Figure 1.1. Comparison of the key indicators for different types of rural regions in Ireland

Note: Rural Regions Near Cities (NMR-S) and Rural Remote Regions (NMR-R)

Economic diversification emerges as a critical challenge. Ireland's growth model, anchored in FDI, export-oriented manufacturing, agrifood and agritourism, has delivered high returns but exposes rural areas to volatility and dependency. Addressing this requires bridging the gap between available support for rural small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and how these supports are communicated and accessed, whilst reinforcing rural services that currently limit communities' ability to attract people and businesses. ORF II should focus on developing place-based ecosystems that nurture enterprises, strengthen SME and social enterprise capacity, and connect digital and physical infrastructure to local economic needs. Tourism and broadband investment are critical enablers, but their benefits depend on complementary measures including skills development, innovation, access to finance and the ability to retain value locally.

In addition, Ireland's FDI-led success risks creating a two-speed economy, especially if FDI-derived opportunities do not sufficiently diffuse beyond larger cities. Thin and misaligned local labour markets, particularly in rural areas, waste skills and stall productivity, whilst environmental pressures threaten rural incomes and natural capital. Mitigating this risk requires diversifying the economy into activities related to bio-innovation clusters and the circular economy and improving rural attractiveness through key public services such as wastewater treatment and electricity transmission capacity.

Housing shortages and inadequate infrastructure have become important bottlenecks for rural competitiveness. Addressing these requires linking housing delivery to places with unmet labour demand and prioritising investments in high-potential towns where there are available serviced sites. Fragmented childcare, transport, digital and water services quietly erode rural viability, limiting where families can settle and firms can invest. These services function as an interconnected system yet are planned and funded in isolation. Gender, migrant and cost-of-living gaps continue to suppress workforce participation and enterprise creation. Without targeted rural upskilling, implementing the green transition may widen spatial inequalities, excluding workers and SMEs through distance, higher costs and limited access to training.

Many interventions remain anchored in national rather than territorial logic, with limited attention to the functional and spatial diversity of rural areas. The enduring “rural idyll” still shapes perceptions of what rural means. A more functional, place-based approach would better capture the diversity of rural Ireland, integrating typologies such as the CSO six-way classification, while acknowledging inter-settlement linkages and hinterlands as living, productive spaces beyond town centres. The path forward lies in sharper spatial intelligence institutionalising typology-based planning and embedding rural-urban linkages into national frameworks that link local evidence to regional strategies and national priorities.

ORF's breadth demonstrates genuine whole-of-government ambition, yet institutional follow-through, particularly at the subnational level, remains constrained by fiscal and administrative centralisation. Ireland's regional assemblies, though lacking executive power, are well positioned to act as analytical and co-ordination hubs. Local authorities face similar constraints but hold potential for innovation through participatory planning processes. Achieving sustainable, resilient rural futures requires institutional continuity and foresight. Climate action, land stewardship and social inclusion must be integrated into every aspect of rural policy, ensuring that green transitions generate shared prosperity.

Ireland's culture of civic participation remains a defining strength, but sustaining it requires more support. Extensive consultation currently compensates for limited analytical capacity at the local level, but this approach can dilute accountability and delay decision-making. Embedding participatory foresight and long-term planning mechanisms, such as a Rural 2040 strategy, would allow Ireland to move from short-cycle policy responses to anticipatory, adaptive governance. By balancing inclusion with strategic vision, Ireland can transform ORF II into a durable framework that strengthens both the economic and social fabric of its rural regions.

The monitoring framework for ORF reveals a critical disconnect between national oversight and local reality. A strong top-down system is in place that tracks administrative progress, but there is a significant gap in bottom-up monitoring that systematically captures the lived experience of rural citizens. This is hindered by the lack of a consistently applied definition of "rural" across government departments. The monitoring framework for the next iteration of ORF must evolve beyond tracking administrative outputs to measuring genuine well-being outcomes that reflect quality of life, not just the completion of government priorities. This is critical, as the next phase of policy comes at a time when green and digital transitions and rising citizen expectations are intensifying demands on rural policy, requiring more responsive, place-based governance.

Ireland's ORF strategy successfully elevates rural issues to a national priority and provides a comprehensive map of cross-departmental commitments. The following assessment (Table 1.1) distils the key strengths of the current approach alongside opportunities and challenges organised according to the OECD standards.

Table 1.1. OECD standards and Irish Rural Policy: an overview

Policy Objective: - Turning rural potential into measured outcomes OECD Rural Principles 4, 5, 6 and 8: fostering well-being, leveraging global and digital transitions, creating rural employment.
Key Questions	What works	What does not work	What should be prioritised
Are policies delivering balanced well-being? Consider future demographic, economic, environmental shifts? Are rural populations thriving?	People First focus well-articulated	Rural is treated too much as “outside Dublin”, not sufficiently differentiated	Leverage in-migration trends for workforce renewal
	Strong effort to gather all rural-relevant measures across government into one umbrella (whole-of-government approach)	Lack of sharper economic development and diversification strategy (missing CEDRA-style follow-up)	Tap strong environmental assets in remote areas (for green economy strategies)
	ORF brings rural visibility across departments, rare among OECD peers	ORF measures translate unevenly to local realities	Use previous policy instruments e.g. CEDRA as a foundation to strengthen rural economic development strategy
	Rural in-migration trend strengthens rural workforce potential	Housing focus risks leaving hinterlands behind	Build rural development approaches that better integrate hinterland housing and services
		LEOs and funding focus on export-oriented firms, while others are underserved	Successful broadband rollout demonstrates the potential of creating enabling environments
		Water quality deterioration risks environmental assets	Support social enterprises to offer skills building and transitional employment
		Limited focus on hinterland areas outside town centres (e.g. housing)
Policy targets: Getting “rural” right - definitions, functions and delivery OECD Rural Principles 1, 2, 3 and 7: differentiating between types of rural territories and strengthening rural-urban connections
Key Questions	What works	What does not work	What should be prioritised
Are policy responses spatially sensitive? How does geography affect implementation and outcomes? Are remote areas underserved?	Clear rural and regional development focus	Broader ORF actions still largely undifferentiated	Make systematic use of six-way split evidence across departments
	DRCDG actions show some differentiated thinking	Rural as regions outside Dublin narrative persists	Build stronger place-based strategies within different rural typologies (e.g. dispersed)
	Six-way split typology is beginning to emerge in government dialogue	Focus on compact growth; hinterlands less visible	Green economy opportunities tailored to rural functional areas
	Healthcare reforms increasingly respond to rural needs	Functional rural scales not consistently integrated into policy actions	Improve data collection and dissemination to support a differentiated approach
	Climate neutrality measures included in ORF		Extend over-the-shop housing provisions
			Promote differentiated approaches to rural labour markets
Policy Implementation: Towards an evidence-led place-based approach (OECD Rural Principles 9: How are multi-level governance structures enhancing coherence, integration and collaboration?
Key Questions	What works	What does not work	What should be prioritised
(National) Is rural policy cross-sectoral in practice? Are trade-offs between land use, energy, agriculture, and conservation managed coherently?	Strong national-level convening by DRCDG	Rural idyll (nostalgia of countryside) slows differentiation	Use of CSO six-way split classification to influence national policy targeting
	Inter-ministerial working groups in place	Some departments (e.g. Enterprise) still see rural as simply “non-urban” or outside Dublin.	Build more cross-departmental pilots around rural economic zones
	Cross-government visibility on rural measures	Administrative burden on DRCDG to monitor actions not directly under its control	Promote a broader understanding of rural economy beyond traditional sectors
	ORF acts as governance lens, not just a strategy	Need stronger horizontal commitment across government	DRCDG can shift from monitoring and data collection to co-ordination across departments
(Regional)	Regional Assemblies include LAs, giving some rural voice	Regional Assemblies mostly focus on EU fund management	Regional Assemblies could act as advocates for functional rural scale approaches
	Regional strategies exist, can be rural-refined	Rural issues not consistently championed at regional level	Potential role in piloting differentiated rural economic strategies
	Growing recognition of need for spatial planning innovation	No strong rural typology application at regional scale	Could help connect local initiatives to larger spatial planning frameworks
	Analytical foundations to manage functional frameworks	Co-ordination across unclear regional boundaries and mandates	Leverage mix of urban and rural territories to create dialogue, measure and report on rural-urban interdependencies
		Ambiguity over Regional Assemblies role in rural economic development
(Local)	-Strong local civic engagement	LAs have limited flexibility (constrained by NPF and regional plans)	Pilot more bottom-up rural economic development plans using six-way split
	DRCDG links to LCDCs create direct national-local rural bridge	Heavy dependence on volunteers	Build capacity for innovation outside rigid planning templates
	Strong commitment to community-led local development	Embedded national staff (e.g. LEOs) reduce true local autonomy	Invest in reducing volunteer reliance through professionalisation of rural delivery
		Limited amount of own source revenue	Rely on smaller units (municipalities, parishes, local networks) for development and deliberative democracy initiatives
		Competition and confusion between LCDCs, LDCs and LAGs
Policy tools (monitoring and engagement): Turning strategy into delivery, refining instruments for co ordination and impact OECD Rural Principles 10 and 11: How are stakeholders engaged, rural voices activated, and outcomes monitored and evaluated?
Key Questions	What works	What does not work	What should be prioritised
Are rural voices heard? Are partnerships effective? Is local capacity strengthened? Is the private sector meaningfully engaged?	DRCDG strong on publishing progress reports	Monitoring risks focusing on administrative delivery, not real rural outcomes	Develop rural outcome indicators, not just delivery indicators
	National visibility of rural actions maintained	Heavy burden on DRCDG to chase information from departments	Introduce bottom-up monitoring tools (rural voice surveys, case studies)
	New efforts to use six-way split for monitoring underway	Disconnect between reporting measures and assessing rural quality of life	Build a national rural data infrastructure aligned to typologies
	Strong stakeholder consultation in ORF design	Over-reliance on volunteer delivery creates fragility	Formalise training and support structures for rural volunteers
	Very high levels of civic participation	Risk of burnout, inequality between communities	Professionalise key rural delivery roles where feasible
	Volunteers central to rural initiatives	Little internal capacity to choose between divergent expert opinions	Build long-term rural governance capacity
		Over-consultation delay and fragment strategies and policy response

Recommendations

The Assessment reveals that Ireland's rural areas demonstrate significant economic potential but face persistent challenges: spatial inequality, under-resourced subnational structures, fragmented service delivery, and insufficient spatial intelligence. The following recommendations address these challenges through eight interconnected priorities, designed to strengthen Ireland's whole-of-government approach whilst building subnational capacity and place-based responsiveness.

Strengthen rural economic development through targeted supports and labour market strategies

Ireland needs a more systematic rural entrepreneurial discovery process

Ireland uses a mix of rural-specific and broader regional and sectoral policies to encourage economic growth in rural areas: however, their impact varies by place. Some rural areas have taken advantage of market opportunities and substantially contributed to national growth, while others remain in long-term decline. Currently, Irish policy places particular attention to multinational enterprises and export-oriented firms, and recognises the entrepreneurial potential of micro enterprises, high-potential start-ups and benefits from farm diversification programmes. However, there is a middle layer that receives less support; domestically oriented SMEs, early-stage rural firms and small mid-capitalisation (mid-cap) firms that have the potential to scale up. These firms are past the start-up stage and have developed local market strengths and while they may not yet be leading players, they have significant growth potential and are particularly important for strengthening the rural economy. More importantly, these are the firms that are most likely to drive economic growth and diversification in rural regions.

The OECD encourages member countries to develop rural policies that harness local knowledge, encourage experimentation and support entrepreneurial discovery of new opportunities (OECD, 2025[1]). OECD analysis suggests that economic diversification emerges from structured, iterative interaction between entrepreneurs and public actors to discover and develop viable new activities that then align support and investment (OECD, 2025[1]). In short, a targeted entrepreneurial discovery process bolstered by institutional support is key to economic development.

Figure 1.2. Policy actions to harness local knowledge and encourage experimentation

Source: OECD (2025[1]), Rural Innovation Pathways: Connecting People, Places and Ideas, https://doi.org/10.1787/c86de0f4-en.

The entrepreneurial discovery process operates through a continuous cycle of engagement, analysis, and adaptation (Figure 1.2), enabling policymakers to move from broad sectoral priorities to targeted, place-specific interventions. Ireland has elements of an entrepreneurial discovery approach, which is not yet systematic: examples include LEADER programme1 project selection, local co‑creation around hubs and some regional enterprise planning. Currently, there is no dedicated, continuous entrepreneurial discovery process that scans the whole rural economy, prioritises niches and then adapts support measures to suit them (OECD, 2019[2]). This process would be particularly relevant both for mid-stage existing firms that are already diversifying but need better and more co‑ordinated support, and for new entrepreneurs. Moving in this direction would help:

• Reveal viable diversification niches across the whole rural economy.

• Target support at under‑served small rural firms.

• Make better use of existing instruments.

Key actions

• Make diversification a shared objective: embed this approach in ORF II, to help ensure that Ireland’s common agricultural policy, Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSES), Regional Enterprise Plans and Local Economic and Community Plans (LECPs) all reflect goals around rural economic diversification beyond farm viability or balanced growth. Use these shared goals to inform and supplement funding for projects.

• Co‑ordinate support around entrepreneurial discovery: align advisory, finance and training support so firms can test new combinations in tourism, bioeconomy, renewables, information and communication technology, and services. Create structured discovery spaces (regional/ rural innovation platforms, cross‑schemes) where LEADER LAGs, local enterprise offices (LEOs), the Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Teagasc) and others can jointly identify niches and then co‑design support packages.

Figure 1.3. Create a systematic rural entrepreneurial discovery process

Note: EDP: entrepreneurial discovery process.

To enhance this strategic direction and ensure wide impact, Ireland will also need to strengthen the rural business ecosystem. The sections that follow focus on the key operational barriers and delivery systems highlighted in Chapters 4 and 5 and provides some recommendations to help them better support diversification and entrepreneurial discovery.

Ireland also needs a functioning rural business ecosystem

Currently, most national supports for entrepreneurs are delivered through the LEOs, which focus on export-oriented firms. As noted in Chapter 4 and 5, small firms aiming only to serve domestic markets (e.g. service providers, retail, local manufacturers) still seem to struggle to access funding (Whelan, McGuinness and Barrett, 2021[3]). These firms can turn to European Union (EU) programmes for support, but an over-reliance on EU funding instruments can make domestic entrepreneurship more fragile.

There have been some changes over the years. The government has broadened support to a wider group of SMEs that includes rural firms. The 2024‑2030 LEO Policy Statement confirms that LEOs are now the “first-stop shop” for businesses and explicitly targets decarbonisation, digitalisation, increasing exports, enabling locally traded firms to thrive and stepping up innovation (Local Enterprise Office, 2024[4]). LEOs can now provide direct financial support to firms with more than 10 employees and offer Green/Energy Efficiency and Grow Digital Vouchers to businesses with up to 50 employees, including many rural SMEs. The National Enterprise Hub (NEH), established in 2024, now also provides information on over 250 supports from 32 different government bodies.

The wider scope is welcome, it has some limits. It is topic-specific and focuses more on green and digital upgrades, productivity, export readiness, not necessarily general risk capital or start‑up/diversification finance for micro, non‑exporting rural firms in tourism, services, local food and care. National strategy ORF II should encourage the development of a more flexible entrepreneurship ecosystem, one that recognises the diversity of rural business models, including those not focused on export markets. OECD interviews with various government and non-government representatives, including entrepreneurs in rural areas, highlighted a persistent disconnect between what rural business owners report about access to funding and what LEOs indicate is available.

The government has a strong interest in ensuring that all rural SMEs are supported. To bridge this communication and perception gap, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (DETE) or Enterprise Ireland could convene Rural Business Tables. This is different from the entrepreneurial discovery spaces proposed earlier because they would be designed to enhance horizontal and vertical communication. Specifically, they would create space for locally anchored, non-export enterprises to articulate their needs and identify shared challenges. Also, it is an opportunity to make funding rules clearer, dispel misconceptions and enable the co-design of more adaptive support mechanisms with entrepreneurs and agencies.

At present, LAGs facilitate roundtable discussions with business owners. Those meetings are valuable and routinely address existing confusion regarding and perceptions of available support, helping make funding pathways clearer and more inclusive. The roundtables proposed above are different: they can prevent upstream misinformation, bring local experiences into national policy and feed into interagency discussions at both the national and subnational levels. Being heard by national actors increases legitimacy, confidence and participation of rural SMEs. This approach would give rural entrepreneurs stronger visibility and enable more responsive, data-informed policy co‑ordination.

Box 1.1. Rural innovation labs and dialogue circles in Sweden: Linking local enterprise to national policy

Sweden’s rural innovation policy includes regular “Rural Innovation Labs” and entrepreneurship dialogue circles in remote and semi-rural regions. These events target not only tech or export-oriented start-ups but also local retail, tourism, artisan and service businesses. Swedish policymakers use these fora to identify ecosystem bottlenecks, unpack perceptions about funding and adjust support schemes to the diverse realities of rural entrepreneurship. Ireland could draw on this model to institutionalise structured, cross-level dialogue between rural entrepreneurs and national enterprise actors.

Source: OECD (2023[5]), “Networks and rural-urban linkages for rural innovation”, https://doi.org/10.1787/4928f26b-en.

Key actions

• Convene regular rural business stakeholder groups (Rural Business Tables), bringing together entrepreneurs, LEOs and enterprise agencies.

• Use rural intelligence (dashboards, data tools, qualitative case studies) to evidence the challenges and opportunities faced by rural entrepreneurs.

• Feed these insights into national enterprise co‑ordination processes, ensuring that rural perspectives inform enterprise, labour and funding policies.

• Support the design of complementary instruments for smaller and community-based enterprises, such as microfinance, hybrid business models or local incubators.

• Strengthen communication between LEOs and rural entrepreneurs to close the information and perception gap.

Address the interconnected barriers to rural business growth

Beyond enterprise supports, broader environmental and infrastructural conditions also determine rural business viability. Governments face intense pressure to make better use of investments and deliver services more efficiently in rural areas (OECD, 2018[6]). While growing rural populations create new economic opportunities, they also intensify pressures on land use and essential services. Discussions during OECD fact-finding meetings revealed that business owners in rural Ireland are grappling with several overlapping conditions, including water-quality limitations, land-use restrictions and housing shortages. In some cases, these issues force businesses to subsidise employee accommodation, creating unsustainable costs. This undermines the viability of both the individual business and local economic development as a whole.

To address this, ORF II should prioritise developing a co‑ordinated and evidence-based approach to addressing the interconnected barriers facing rural business owners. Multiple departments, including the Departments of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Housing, Local Government and Heritage, of Climate, Energy and the Environment and investment promotion agency IDA Ireland, play crucial roles in supporting businesses directly and indirectly, each operating under their own strategies. ORF II should set out initiatives and strategies designed to inform, complement and supplement these department strategies, ensuring that rural-specific constraints and opportunities are consistently recognised.

Box 1.2. Addressing interconnected barriers to rural business growth: Australia, Japan and Sweden

Several OECD countries have recognised and acted on the interconnected barriers to rural business expansion and growth, linking policies across housing, land use, skills and infrastructure to support viable local economies.

The Regional Development Australia (RDA) initiative works across barriers such as infrastructure gaps, skills shortages, regulatory complexity and market access. RDA boards co‑ordinate with government, businesses and LAs to identify and address each region’s unique combination of challenges. Through regional development plans and stakeholder consultations, they simultaneously target issues such as workforce housing, transport, digital connectivity and available business premises, ensuring that multiple constraints are tackled in parallel.

Japan’s Regional Revitalisation initiatives address depopulation and rural business growth by linking land use policy, housing, local services and entrepreneurship support. Efforts focus on integrated solutions, combining coworking spaces with housing provision, repurposing vacant properties, upgrading local transport and developing tailored training programmes for entrepreneurs. This approach treats barriers as interdependent and aligns spatial, economic and demographic strategies to revitalise rural areas.

Sweden’s rural policy framework, led by the Swedish Board of Agriculture and regional innovation hubs, integrates action into policy linked to land use constraints, rural housing shortages, skills gaps and connectivity challenges. Programmes such as rural innovation labs foster collaboration between local businesses, municipalities and national agencies, promoting joint solutions that advance infrastructure, housing and joint skill building to enable rural enterprise growth.

Source: OECD (2024[7]), “Assessing the framework conditions for social innovation in rural areas”, https://doi.org/10.1787/74367d76-en.

The first step is to build an integrated understanding of how these challenges interact in different parts of rural Ireland. While the Government already uses data analysis and stakeholder consultation, these methods are rarely combined to systematically reveal how interconnected challenges (water, land use, housing, business viability) affect rural business owners. The DETE and IDA are well positioned to lead this work as they are closest to enterprise policy and investment decisions. They are also institutionally placed to look at constraints on business development. At the same time, DRCDG could support their efforts with data mapping, targeted research and structured consultations with diverse rural business owners and other relevant stakeholders. The DRCDG has a track record of engaging diverse sectors and stakeholders. Most recently, in March 2025, the department undertook extensive stakeholder and public consultations to inform the next phase of rural development policy. ORF II could leverage this experience by encouraging the department to design consultation formats that explicitly explore connections between water quality, land use constraints, housing shortages, and business viability.

The gathered insights both quantitative and qualitative could then be used strategically to make cross‑cutting rural issues visible to other departments, through existing co‑ordination mechanisms, inter‑departmental groups and potential periodic reports or fact sheets, e.g. a dedicated State of Rural Businesses publication, brief or fact sheet. The DRCDG should also use this intelligence proactively to identify where its own programmes and grants can bridge information or resource gaps, stepping in strategically to complement enterprise and investment efforts. This would ensure that the DRCDG’s resources are deployed in a targeted way, reinforcing the work of other departments while addressing specific rural bottlenecks revealed by the data. In doing so, the DRCDG would strengthen both the evidence base, and the practical co‑ordination required for more joined-up, place-sensitive interventions.

Advocate for alternative housing strategies

One immediate lever that links housing constraints to rural economic outcomes is the reuse of vacant spaces above-shops. ORF II should carry forward one of the ORF proposals, to identify and work with other departments to convert the spaces above shops and businesses into housing. As Irish business network Chambers Ireland noted in its 2025 consultation submission, such conversions could “significantly increase housing stock, reduce vacancy rates and revitalise urban areas, despite facing regulatory, financial and infrastructural challenges” (Chambers Ireland, 2025[8]). It could also respond to immediate housing shortages that deter healthcare professionals, teachers and other essential workers from settling in rural areas while simultaneously revitalising town centres. The current planning exemptions that allow for these types of units were set to expire in 2025.

The good news is the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is already thinking about extending the exemptions and expanding support for conversion. The new housing plan commits to improving and expanding the current Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant for conversion of vacant above-shop spaces. However, the housing plan alone does not guarantee uptake, cross-department co‑ordination or recognition of this opportunity as an economic lever, that could address SME recruitment or labour market constraints. To complement this effort, ORF II could take the lead in promoting uptake with LAs by framing above-shop conversions as an economic development tool that addresses workforce housing needs, supports SME recruitment, and revitalises town centres. This would require co-ordination across the different relevant departments to align housing initiatives with labour market and enterprise strategies.

Key actions

• Map interdependencies to show, for example, how housing shortages affect SME recruitment and retention or how water infrastructure limits enterprise development.

• Utilise rural intelligence in cross-government co‑ordination settings (Departments of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, of Climate, Energy and the Environment, DETE) to support informed solutions.

• Ensure support for both town centre and dispersed rural businesses, recognising their complementary roles in local economies.

• Leverage the State of Rural Ireland reports and dashboards, in collaboration with regional assemblies, to communicate rural challenges.

Build differentiated rural labour markets through spatial and economic alignment

Use spatial planning tools to enable rural employment and workforce mobility

Ireland does not yet systematically analyse rural labour markets, even though they are decisive for whether people can live and work locally. Consequently, aligning renovation efforts with actual employer needs and workforce commuting patterns could help address both vacancy and rural employment challenges. ORF II could address this gap by ensuring that spatial planning tools and settlement policies are aligned with rural economic realities. The current emphasis is on compact growth even in the case of rural settlements (including clusters and networked villages) and this is set out in the National Planning Framework and successive Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies. Current planning guidance, Sustainable Residential Development and Compact Settlements Guidelines for Planning Authorities (DHLGH, 2024[9]), Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025‑2030 (DHLGH, 2025[10]) and the Town Centre First Policy/Investing in Villages, Towns and Cities (DRCDG/DHLGH, 2022[11]), maintains this focus on cities, larger towns and town centres, with less practical guidance for dispersed rural settlement patterns.

However, there is an opportunity here for a new approach that could build on existing experiences. Current Irish initiatives (e.g. Town Centre First, Croí Cónaithe [Cities]) focus on vacancy in general but do not systematically pair renovation with workforce planning, employer demand or sectoral needs. Labour market integration is key to sustaining population and business development. ORF II could make derelict and vacancy programmes more responsive to local labour market demand. This would be an innovative and necessary strategy.

At the same time, compact growth models should be adapted to networked settlements and industrial/SME land uses more clearly recognised in rural zones. Several OECD countries have adapted compact-growth approaches to better link spatial, housing and labour market needs (Box 1.3). In Finland, labour agencies and municipalities co-analyse vacancy and employer data to ensure that new or renovated units meet local workforce needs. In France, under Petites villes de demain, LAs must submit an “employer-demand assessment” before receiving renovation funds. Austria, meanwhile, uses its Smart Villages and regional development agencies to pair workforce-housing support with transport and SME-zone planning. Drawing on these examples, pilot programmes could be considered by the DRCDG or other departments, which adapt compact-growth principles to clusters of small towns and villages supporting networked settlements through integrated planning. LAs should designate and proactively zone land for rural SMEs, light industry and enterprise, ensuring that business growth is possible beyond commercial or town centre sites.

Box 1.3. Adapting compact growth, linking vacancy to labour market needs: Lessons from Austria, Finland and France

Austria, Finland and France provide examples of adapting compact growth to rural networks, linking vacancy and dereliction strategies to employer and workforce needs and prioritising connectivity upgrades that unlock viable labour flows, all internationally recognised – and effective – solutions for rural challenges.

Austria: Rural connectivity and employer-led housing strategies

Austria has developed Smart Villages strategies that integrate the renovation of vacant rural properties with actively mapped employer requirements and labour mobility plans. These programmes link transport upgrades (high-frequency, flexible bus services) directly to labour market mapping, supporting day-to-day commuting and workforce attraction in small towns and rural productive zones. The Austrian approach recognises the need for SME and industrial land in rural areas, with targeted investments unlocked where they best support workforce flows.

Finland: Networked settlements and labour-market-led vacancy programmes

Finland’s rural policy explicitly supports “networked villages” with compact growth adapted to settlement clusters rather than relying on traditional urban density models. Finnish rural development programmes also pair renovation and revitalisation of derelict spaces with local employer demand, ensuring workforce accommodation links to business viability. Policy documents emphasise integrated planning across municipalities, labour agencies and transport authorities to align vacancy initiatives with labour market flows.

France: Labour-sensitive rural regeneration

France’s Petites villes de demain (Small Towns of Tomorrow) programme targets rural derelict and vacant sites, pairing renovation funding with local business and employment needs. The initiative requires LAs to analyse employer demand, commuting patterns and transport access before funding derelict property renewal. Rural enterprise zones also focus on dedicating land for SMEs and improving connectivity for local labour mobility, with bus and rail improvements co‑ordinated alongside housing planning.

Source: OECD (2023[5]), “Networks and rural-urban linkages for rural innovation”, https://doi.org/10.1787/4928f26b-en.

Embed differentiated rural labour market strategies

Beyond physical planning, labour market strategies must also reflect rural diversity. Rural SMEs differ significantly from export-oriented firms, typically supported through enterprise policy. Many operate in domestic markets or as “second-tier” suppliers within value chains. ORF II should ensure that rural labour realities are reflected in national and subnational strategies, including Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSES) and Local Economic and Community Plans (LECPs). Regional assemblies lead RSES preparation, but the economic dimension often underrepresents rural labour markets and their distinct challenges. Although their boards include both urban and rural councillors, they tend to prioritise infrastructure and spatial planning over labour market realities.

Government can support assemblies and LAs to pilot differentiated labour market analysis that reflects rural typologies, using enhanced data portals and rural dashboards. The assemblies already have access to an enhanced data portal, the Regional Monitor, but as noted in Chapter 4 the data is not differentiated so it cannot yet support: functional region or rural–urban interaction analysis, and place-based labour strategies. Regional assembly boards comprise elected leaders from rural and urban areas within each region. As noted in Chapter 4, assemblies already implicitly take a functional approach to their work by developing plans that bridge administrative boundaries. This means they have the building blocks in place to strengthen their functional approach by adding a rural lens. and develop more robust evidence on rural-urban interdependencies, thereby becoming more cognisant of opportunities and better understanding the drivers of rural and urban labour markets.

Accordingly, ORF call for the assemblies to be supported in two ways. First, they should be supported to pilot differentiated economic strategies that reflect rural typologies. Second, they should leverage their mixed rural-urban board composition to convene structured dialogues with local stakeholders and officials representing both rural and urban interests. Merging the insights from the dialogues with the more differentiated evidence would yield information that would help the assembles better understand how rural and urban labour markets interact within functional regions and inform more place‑based decision making. This would enable assemblies to play a leading role in co-ordinating rural-urban economic strategies and informing place-based policy across their regions.

ORF II should also encourage local development plans to incorporate rural labour‑market considerations into their planning. LAs already engage with rural and community development through local community development communities (LCDCs) and their partnerships with local development companies (LDCs) and LEADER LAGs, but their role is still heavily shaped by EU funding frameworks and national spatial planning rules. As such, labour market dynamics (including housing shortages, water quality, SME needs and workforce availability) are often missing from these plans. The DRCDG can provide practical guidance and capacity support to LAs in the use of labour market analysis (utilising the rural dashboards) as part of LCDC and local plan preparation, and in piloting LA-level rural labour market “snapshots” or profiles integrated into LEADER planning.

Key actions

• Incorporate differentiated rural labour market analysis into national, regional and local strategies.

• Encourage regional assemblies to include rural labour market analysis in future RSES updates.

• Provide guidance and training for LAs to integrate labour data into LECPs and local plans.

• Use rural intelligence tools to generate granular rural labour data and insights.

• Encourage structured dialogues with rural councillors, employers and community representatives to inform future planning cycles.

Build an inclusive and resilient rural entrepreneurship ecosystem

Leverage social innovation as a stepping stone to entrepreneurship

Social innovation builds directly transferable entrepreneurial skills. Whilst these initiatives focus on community resilience, inclusion, or service delivery rather than commercial objectives, managing them involves critical skills such as project management, fundraising, governance, and stakeholder engagement. These skills are directly relevant to entrepreneurship, particularly in rural areas where social enterprise is more prevalent and commercial opportunities are limited. Several OECD Member countries have embraced this approach by providing targeted support see Box 1.4.

Ireland has a well-established social innovation and social enterprise ecosystem, which has been actively supported through ORF and complementary national programmes (OECD, 2023[12]). However, the potential to leverage these skills for broader entrepreneurship remains underutilised. Treating social enterprise and community initiatives as part of the entrepreneurial pipeline, not just community development, means that social innovation becomes an on‑ramp into business creation. In practical terms, the social innovators would then be able to access enterprise supports (e.g. LEOs, enterprise funds, skills, finance) like any other commercial start‑up.

There are over 4,335 social enterprises in Ireland, employing over 84,000 people. Of these, 43% located in rural areas and most are micro or small enterprises (DRCDG, 2023[13]). Ireland already has several levers that could be tapped to support this effort, such as the National Social Enterprise Policy and dedicated social enterprise actions (e.g. Social Enterprise Development Fund) that provide funding, business courses and mentoring that reach rural social innovators across the country. Building on these community capacities can strengthen local labour markets and create new business ventures. However, this will require an integrated and co-ordinated approach.

In many rural areas social enterprises are already operating as entrepreneurial actors, they are just outside DETE and LEO metrics and supports. Therefore, even if DRCDG positions social innovation as a rural entrepreneurship pathway, DETE and LEOs would have to formally recognise social innovators as businesses and adapt the eligibility criteria to enable them to access enterprise supports. ORF II and the Social Enterprise Policy 2024‑2027 are the logical places to signal social innovation as a recognised pathway into enterprise supports, with DRCDG and DETE as partners.

Box 1.4. Leveraging social innovation as a catalyst for rural entrepreneurship

Several OECD Member countries actively leverage social innovation as a stepping stone to entrepreneurship in rural areas. The following offer notable examples.

Canada supports rural social innovation as a catalyst for entrepreneurship, especially where gaps exist in public service delivery, business incubation and local development. Canadian rural regions have developed social enterprises for local childcare, food systems and Indigenous-led social businesses, which often start as social innovations and evolve into entrepreneurial ventures. National and provincial rural development programmes routinely support such transitions by offering mentorship, training and start-up grants tailored for social innovators.

In Scotland (United Kingdom), Rural Scotland’s policy ecosystem includes initiatives like Social Enterprise Scotland and the Rural Social Enterprise Hub, explicitly designed to promote social innovation as a pathway to new entrepreneurship. Social innovations addressing rural health, social care, community energy and tourism often become anchor enterprises, creating new business models and employment platforms for rural populations. These hubs offer structured support, resources and networks targeting rural-specific challenges.

France integrates social innovation into national rural policy, exemplified by initiatives funded under the European Social Fund. Between 2017 and 2019, France supported over 100 rural-focused social innovation projects, many of which addressed local employment, new services and environmental solutions. These efforts intentionally bridge social purpose-driven innovation with entrepreneurial capacity building, enabling transitions from grassroots problem solving to sustainable rural businesses.

Both Japan and Switzerland have been profiled by the OECD for designing rural social innovation programmes that lay the groundwork for new entrepreneurial activity, especially in remote and mountainous regions. Their policies promote local collaboration networks, skill building for non‑traditional entrepreneurs and linking social innovation to market opportunities for services, health and tourism.

Source: OECD (2022[14]), Unlocking Rural Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1787/9044a961-en.

Key actions

• Position social innovation as an entry point to entrepreneurship in ORF II, particularly for rural communities.

• Advocate nationally for enterprise supports that link social innovation to SME development (mentoring, grants, accelerators).

• Encourage regional assemblies and LAs to embed this approach into local and regional economic strategies.

• Develop and disseminate case studies showcasing successful transitions from social innovation to entrepreneurship.

Support training partnerships between social innovation actors, enterprise agencies and educational institutions to bridge the skills gap.

Help reduce barriers to entry and build appetite for entrepreneurship

Stakeholder discussions for this review highlight that many Irish citizens remain risk-averse about starting businesses, partly due to bureaucracy, high entry barriers and the security of employment in the public sector or multinationals. In rural regions, this dynamic weakens the pipeline of new entrepreneurs and limits local economic renewal. ORF II should prioritise measures that lower the cost and complexity of becoming an entrepreneur while strengthening the visibility and attractiveness of self-employment in rural areas. This could include a dedicated focus on “rural pathways to entrepreneurship”, linking local skills development, business support and community capacity building.

The DRCDG can play a facilitative, evidence-based role by curating information on the barriers faced by rural entrepreneurs and convening enterprise, finance and further and higher education departments to co-design solutions. Simplified pilot schemes, such as micro grants with light administrative requirements, community-based co-operative models that share risk and small-scale incubators or local enterprise hubs, could help new entrepreneurs build capacity gradually. In parallel, the DRCDG could promote positive narratives and peer networks that make entrepreneurship more visible and socially valued. These could be embedded within the DRCDG community programmes and linked to Town Centre First initiatives to give local entrepreneurs greater visibility and support.

Education and training systems should also contribute by integrating entrepreneurship and problem-solving skills into secondary and tertiary curricula and adapting apprenticeship systems to rural realities, smaller labour pools, transport constraints and limited firm density. Although the national Action Plan for Apprenticeship aims for a strong regional footprint, rural areas often struggle to access these opportunities. The DRCDG could work with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to pilot flexible learning hubs, mobile training facilities or targeted rural apprenticeship schemes.

Key actions

• Identify and remove rural-specific barriers to entrepreneurship.

• Pilot simplified, low-bureaucracy entrepreneurship schemes (micro grants, rural incubators, co‑operative models).

• Promote entrepreneurship narratives and peer mentoring through community networks and Town Centre First initiatives.

• Integrate entrepreneurship and problem-solving skills into curricula, particularly for rural students.

• Adapt apprenticeship systems to rural conditions (transport, firm size, partnerships).

Re-examine Rural Economic Development Zones

ORF II should explore the establishment of pilot Rural Economic Development Zones (REDZs), a proposal first advanced in the 2014 Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas report. REDZS would serve as a strategic tool to diversify rural economies, strengthen employment and foster innovation by directly linking local initiatives to national policy frameworks. The OECD Principles on Rural Policy encourage governments to pursue integrated, multi-sectoral and locally empowered approaches, built on understanding territorial strengths and assets rather than targeting fixed strategic sectors (OECD, 2025[15]). While existing programmes, such as the Town and Village Renewal Scheme and the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund embrace the core approach, they are not strictly focused on economic development.

For Ireland, REDZs based on local labour markets could be designed as place-based pilots bundling multiple supports including housing, digital infrastructure, skills training, business clusters and SME financing into coherent territorial strategies that target specific local opportunities. These zones would not replicate large-scale tax-free areas but instead test cross-departmental collaboration and identify which combinations of measures deliver the greatest local economic impact. By piloting zones across different rural typologies (adjacent to urban, mid-sized rural and remote), policymakers could generate granular evidence on what drives rural labour markets and investment decisions, including commuting patterns, sectoral specialisation and infrastructure bottlenecks.

Box 1.5. Economic zones examples for OECD Member countries

Several OECD countries have implemented economic zones that impact rural areas by fostering local industry, jobs and investment. For example:

• Italy has created special economic zones (SEZs) in regions such as Abruzzo, Calabria and Sardinia, offering tax incentives and streamlined regulations to stimulate industrial activity and logistics.

• Spain hosts free economic zones (Zonas Francas) in areas including Cádiz and the Canary Islands, which use fiscal advantages and simplified procedures to attract investment in trade and manufacturing.

• Poland operates 14 SEZs across largely rural regions such as Katowice and Suwałki, attracting over EUR 23 billion in investment and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

• France’s Territoires d’industrie programme targets smaller towns and rural/peri-urban areas, supporting industry through place-based governance and financial tools piloting zones in different types of rural areas (adjacent to urban, mid-sized rural, remote).

Sources: Karakas, C., C. Stamegna and I. Zachariadis (2020[16]), “Public economic support in the EU - State aid and special economic zones”, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/646164/EPRS_BRI(2020)646164_EN.pdf (accessed on 14 August 2025); Sherozia, D. (2025[17]), , “Free Economic Zones in Spain”, https://laduchi.com/blog-en/free-economic-zones-in-spain (accessed on 22 August 2023); Banque des Territoires (2023[18]), “Territoires d’industrie, a mechanism to accelerate industrial development - Territories of industry - The programme for industrial relocation - Industrial ecology - Vocational training”, https://www.banquedesterritoires.fr/territoires-dindustrie/la-carte (accessed on 30 August 2025).

Key actions

• Include the development of pilot rural economic development zones in ORF II to test integrated, place-based approaches.

• Use these pilots to analyse rural labour markets, business ecosystems and service linkages across different rural typologies.

• The DRCDG should provide limited seed resources while convening enterprise, housing, environment and finance departments to co-design and monitor the pilots.

• Ensure that findings from the zones feed into future national and regional policy cycles, demonstrating how integrated supports can increase rural competitiveness.

Develop sophisticated rural intelligence and data aligned to typologies

Develop and utilise more nuanced rural evidence to inform policies and strategies

The OECD has long emphasised that robust and nuanced rural intelligence is essential to ensure policies are built on solid and reliable territorial data. In Ireland, the key challenge lies in developing data at the right scale and ensuring a cross-sectoral approach to evidence collection and use. The DRCDG can enhance the quality, accessibility and reliability of such data by curating and maintaining an enhanced rural intelligence system, bringing together information from across government and academic institutions and making it accessible through clear, user-friendly dashboards. This would reinforce the DRCDG’s wider role as the national lead on rural development, strengthening its ability to engage and inform other departments effectively. A wealth of data already exists across government and academic institutions; the challenge is co‑ordination, integration and interpretation through a rural lens. Leveraging relationships with expert institutions and inter-departmental groups will be key to accessing and harmonising datasets.

Consider developing State of Rural Ireland reports

This information could be presented in annual State of the Rural Ireland reports. The report could aggregate data from all major sources (demographics, employment, land use, housing, environment, connectivity, business, well-being) so government and stakeholders can base decisions on robust, current evidence not piecemeal statistics. It will make the state of rural areas visible to the public, highlighting trends, challenges and opportunities in a clear, accessible way, helping to shape both public debate and targeted policy interventions. Economic and Social Research Institute work shows that Ireland lacks a sufficiently granular, routine framework for monitoring rural community conditions, economic trends and policy outcomes, with existing rural data often siloed and inadequately disaggregated (Kelly, McGuinness and Devlin, 2024[19]).

A regular State of Rural Ireland report would give Irish policymakers, LAs, community groups and businesses an accessible set of indicators and insights. One example is the State of the Countryside reports by the former Commission for Rural Communities (England, United Kingdom). Up until the commission closed, the reports presented statistical and analytical evidence on social, economic and environmental issues in rural England (Figure 1.4). Similarly, the State of Rural Canada report produced by the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation also offers an overview of the diverse challenges and opportunities facing rural, remote and northern communities across the country (CRRF, 2024[20]). Such reports could be produced annually, taking stock of the latest trends and developments in demography, labour markets and the economy at the level of regions and municipalities whilst tapping existing institutional relationships with expert institutions to pilot this approach.

Box 1.6. State of the Countryside reports

The Commission for Rural Communities in the United Kingdom produced the State of the Countryside reports until its closure in 2010. These landmark reports summarised key indicators for rural England, presenting evidence about demographics, economic trends, service access, community well-being and environmental challenges. They were widely used by policymakers, local governments, researchers and advocacy groups for rural-proofing policies, understanding rural deprivation, guiding interventions and informing strategic rural development across sectors. Stakeholders cited these reports as vital sources for objective, hard evidence and practical data to support rural communities, improve rural services and shape targeted policy responses. Areas covered included demographic change, youth migration, rural poverty, service closure impact, local enterprise, transport infrastructure and community-driven solutions.

The report was useful as follows:

• Data and analysis from the State of the Countryside reports underpinned government initiatives on market towns, rural transport partnerships, affordable housing, healthcare access and rural economic development.

• The reports were used to develop rural delivery plans and cross-sectoral strategies, influencing policy adjustments at the national and local levels and improving the evidence base for rural policy debates.

• After the commission’s closure, similar functions are continued through the Statistical Digest of Rural England and rural policy reports from the United Kingdom Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and independent organisations.

Figure 1.4. State of the Countryside 2010 – Table of contents

Norway: Rural and regional reports

Norway regularly publishes Regional Development Trends (Regionale utviklingstrekk), a biennial government report that surveys demographic change, public service provision, municipal reform outcomes, broadband coverage, transportation, housing and agricultural support in rural and remote areas. These reports guide the formulation and adjustment of national and regional rural policies, including targeted investments and strategic reforms for rural sustainability and population growth. OECD publications also analyse Norwegian rural policy priorities, highlighting the integration of social and economic objectives.

Scotland: Rural data and policy reviews

Scotland produces ongoing rural community data dashboards and policy reviews, such as the Rural Scotland Data Dashboard and the Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review. These outputs analyse challenges and strengths in rural and island communities and inform the Scottish Government’s Rural Delivery Plan, covering themes like agriculture, land reform, transport, digital connectivity, depopulation and social justice.

Sources: Commission for Rural Communities (2010[21]), State of the Countryside 2010, https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20110118133542/http:/ruralcommunities.gov.uk/2010/07/06/state-of-the-countryside-2010/ (accessed on 20 March 2025); State of the Countryside 2010 , Scottish Government (2023[22]), Rural Scotland Data Dashboard: Overview, https://www.gov.scot/publications/rural-scotland-data-dashboard-overview/pages/2/; Hemmings, P. (2016[23]), “Policy Challenges for Agriculture and Rural Areas in Norway”, https://doi.org/10.1787/5jm0xf0r676c-en.

Complement granular data with a typology-based approach

To make this evidence more actionable, Ireland should not only expand data availability but also ensure that it is analysed and reported through a rural typology lens. Presenting the data based on the rural typology allows policymakers, researchers and communities to really see the changes in rural places and respond to the complex realities of those shifts in a nuanced, informed and impactful way. The OECD strongly recommends this approach to data collection, analysis and reporting. The key advantages are summarised in Table 1.2.

Table 1.2. Why typology-based data matter

Capture diversity	Rural areas are not uniform: some are close to cities (“commuter rural”), others rely on agriculture or tourism (“productive rural”) and some are remote or sparsely populated. Typology-based data help capture this diversity so that policies can be tailored to different kinds of rural environments.
Enable precision	This type of data allows policymakers to analyse challenges and opportunities at the level most relevant to each area.
Help with resource allocation	With typology-based data, funding and support can be prioritised for areas with the greatest need, or where impacts will be largest, such as targeting housing initiatives in “service deserts” or enterprise support in “remote innovation zones”.
Facilitate comparative analysis	Policymakers can compare similar types of rural areas within a country or across OECD Member states, identifying best practices and learning from others’ experiences.
Support policy evaluation	Tracking outcomes by typology helps assess whether interventions are having the intended effect in each rural context – enabling continuous improvement and greater accountability.

Source: OECD (2025[24]), Reinforcing Rural Resilience, https://doi.org/10.1787/7cd485e3-en.

Promote and encourage use of the six-way split

Rurality is complex, dynamic and context-dependent and this is evident even in a small republic like Ireland. At present, the best and most robust definition of “rural” available in Ireland is the CSO six-way urban-rural classification. However, the limited use of it in broader policymaking frameworks suggests that its full potential has yet to be realised. The DRCDG could do more to encourage greater uptake across departments to help bridge the gap between statistical insight and policy implementation. For example, it could form the basis for the development of the State of Rural Ireland report that is then used when engaging other government departments on rural matters in addition to being available online. Irish rural policy documents consistently highlight the need for place-sensitive strategies that recognise the diversity of rural contexts and stress locally designed and implemented solutions. This approach would enable stronger place-based strategies within different rural typologies.

Expanding use of the six-way split could help bridge the gap between statistical insight and policy implementation. It could also help to reconcile the different notions of “rural” that presently exist and persist in Ireland and that sometimes work against polices based on local rural realities. In some cases, the term “rural” is treated too much as meaning “outside Dublin” and is not sufficiently differentiated. In other cases, the Irish rural idyll is very strong and the Irish psyche reinforces the notion that rural Ireland is the authentic Ireland. Both make it difficult to galvanise political support for a workable definition of “rural”. Robust policy cannot be formulated or assessed on this level of vagueness. The existence of the six-way split is valuable and encouraging in this regard: it offers a valuable, underused foundation for spatially-sensitive rural policymaking.

Key actions

• Designate the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht as the keeper of rural intelligence, curating and centralising rural-relevant data from across government and academic institutions.

• Develop accessible rural dashboards and State of Rural Ireland reports, produced bi-annually, to track demographic, labour market and economic trends at the regional and local levels.

• Encourage cross-government use of the CSO six-way urban-rural classification, making it the standard reference point for policy design and evaluation.

• Systematise data into a spatial context, enabling place-sensitive strategies that distinguish between hinterlands, mid-sized towns and remote rural areas.

• Use existing institutional partnerships (universities, research centres, expert bodies) to pilot data curation and analysis, rather than creating new systems from scratch.

• Translate complex data into tailored formats (dashboards, fact sheets, policy briefs) to make rural intelligence accessible and actionable for central ministries, regional assemblies and LAs.

Strengthening implementation and monitoring

Shift to a differentiated monitoring model to increase the effectiveness of rural strategies

The OECD’s work on rural development is a people-centred approach that puts the focus on rural well‑being. Thus, rural development needs to be multi-sectoral, extending well beyond those departments or ministries with a “rural” remit. For this reason, rural policy necessitates a holistic whole-of-government approach and integrated cross-government action. The DRCDG’s decision to structure ORF around 170 priorities, capturing both its own initiatives and the strategies of non-rural-focused government departments such as housing, enterprise, environment and transport, is a compelling and ambitious response to this challenge. Identifying ways to engage non-rural departments is often a struggle in many OECD countries. The fact that so many initiatives are included demonstrates the wide range of actions that impact rural regions. This breadth of visibility on both direct and indirect rural measures is unusual across OECD countries, making it a distinctive and valuable starting point for a whole-of-government approach to rural development. In parallel, an equally important element will be to ensure there is coherence and clear prioritisation amongst the wide range of priorities.

The next strategy, ORF II, should preserve this visibility while introducing a more strategic and differentiated approach to implementation and monitoring. The challenge lies not in the scale of the priorities per se but in the monitoring model. While there is scope to ensure that the list of priorities remains coherent and meaningful, what matters most is that the DRCDG maintains its connection with strategies led by non-rural departments, since these shape rural outcomes as much as its own initiatives. If, in the Irish context, making these policies explicit priorities helps to keep pressure on departments to act, this approach should be retained. However, a differentiated monitoring model should be introduced, including robust monitoring for strategies within the DRCDG’s remit and lighter “strategic monitoring” of measures in other departments.

• Robust monitoring for direct priorities (within the DRCDG’s remit/control): For strategies that the DRCDG can act on, fund or steer directly (e.g. town centre schemes, community funding), monitoring should be multi-dimensional, capturing implementation progress as well as impact and outcome indicators. Shifting reporting from activity counts to outcome dashboards would further ensure the focus remains on the quality of rural lives.

• Strategic monitoring for indirect priorities (outside the DRCDG’s control): For policies lead by other ministries (e.g. housing, labour, environment), the DRCDG’s role should be that of a broker, supplying rural intelligence to help tailor delivery to rural realities, designing strategies that supplement and complement other departments’ work and using existing institutional networks or committees to provide support and maintain visibility.

A stronger and more targeted monitoring system under ORF II will not only improve accountability but also provide the evidence base needed to guide future spatial, labour market and economic strategies, ensuring that Ireland’s rural policy remains both integrated and outcome driven.

This more pragmatic approach would alleviate administrative reporting burdens. It would also enable the DRCDG to pivot to a more proactive role focusing its resources on areas where it adds the greatest value through evidence, co‑ordination and facilitation. For example, there is an opportunity to add value to individual department initiatives by the DRCDG taking on the role of building relationships across line departments. For example, increasing the amount of land in forests is a goal for the environment, as a way to sequester carbon, but it also has impacts on farmers who provide much of the new forested land on their property, on tourism because it can affect the visual experience of tourists and on local economies where there may be opportunities for forest-related business and employment. In this way, the dual-track system would reinforce the department’s role as a broker and guardian of rural interests across the government.

Key actions

• Develop rural outcome indicators (quality of life, not just delivery).

• Introduce bottom-up monitoring tools (rural voice surveys, case studies).

• Build a national rural data infrastructure aligned to typologies.

• Consider an annual monitoring process that includes qualitative indicators.

Strengthen capacity at the subnational level to support rural outcomes

Centralised systems can deliver rapid, top-down change if the political will and administrative machinery are aligned, which is particularly useful, for example, in moments of crisis. What tends to be slower, however, is institutional reform that redistributes authority. Such change typically unfolds incrementally, as new institutions are created or mandates are adjusted. As discussed in Chapter 3, Ireland shows evidence of this incremental shift: the creation of regional assemblies, reform of LAs with expanded responsibilities and the evolution of rural policy from being linked to agricultural issues to becoming the responsibility of a stand-alone department. Arguably, these changes have facilitated a stronger foundation for rural policy, but the potential of Ireland’s subnational structures remains underutilised. Regional assemblies and LAs are functional but narrow in scope and under-resourced, particularly in terms of own-source revenues, compared to OECD peers.

The challenge now is to give local and regional actors the capacity and discretion to shape rural development outcomes. Strengthening multi-level governance will require investment on two fronts. First, co‑ordination mechanisms need to be enhanced so that central, regional and local actors can align programmes and investments. Second, capacity at the subnational level must be reinforced, through resources, staff and analytical tools, so that authorities can act as genuine partners rather than implementers of centrally designed schemes (OECD, 2022[25]).

Support ability to engage in rural-sensitive place-based planning

To this end, ORF II could consider further empowering LAs in selected domains such as local innovation, digital hubs or circular economy projects while resourcing regional assemblies to act as genuine co‑ordinators with analytical capacity and a rural development role. Funding flexibility will also be critical: modest increases in discretionary or block-grant funding would allow local governments to experiment and innovate, rather than being confined to centrally earmarked programmes.

Finally, accountability structures should be further rebalanced so that LAs are more directly answerable to their communities. This includes strengthening the roles and capacities of elected members as community representatives. Such an approach would complement the work of the Local Democracy Taskforce on rebalancing powers between executives and elected members and improving transparency and could be reinforced through stronger participatory mechanisms and greater local fiscal discretion.

Embedding stronger rural-proofing mechanisms that give local perspectives a systematic role in national decision making would reinforce this accountability and ensure that rural realities are consistently considered in policy choices. The RSES already provide the regional spatial and economic frameworks, and they explicitly address rural areas, settlement hierarchies and urban-rural linkages; they connect local plans (community development plans/LECPs) to the national framework. So, regional assemblies already play a key role in linking local development to national spatial and economic policy. Building on this, ORF II could encourage the regional assemblies to more explicitly champion functional rural‑scale approaches and to pilot differentiated rural economic strategies, linking local initiatives and entrepreneurial discovery to wider regional investment and policy tools.

Facilitate stronger linkages among non-rural programmes at the subnational level

ORF II should encourage the regional assemblies to play a more pivotal role in strengthening place-based implementation and ensuring that rural and urban priorities are better aligned across regions. The regional assemblies have analytical assets e.g. Regional Monitor, the political representation, and a co‑ordination role that could make them catalysts for integrated rural-urban strategies and become better linked with the DRCDG. Assemblies could actively lead on rural-urban co‑ordination – something not yet systematically done in Ireland. The assemblies are not regional governments in the traditional sense and have no executive powers, fiscal autonomy or direct electoral mandate.

Their role is co-ordinative, analytical and strategic, primarily through preparing and monitoring the RSES, and they bridge the national and local levels, aligning regional planning with the national policy. To a certain degree, the assemblies have been able to bring coherence to regional planning, particularly through the RSES process. While they do not have a specific focus on rural development, their focus on balanced development and EU programme co‑ordination enables them to contribute further to rural outcomes.

Also, because assemblies already think and act across functional territories, they should now formalise this approach through differentiated data systems and typology. Therefore, the next step could be to make this functional logic more explicit by embedding spatial typologies (urban/rural, remoteness, etc.) into their monitoring systems. Integrating the CSO’s six-way rural classification into the Regional Development Monitor would allow for differentiated regional analysis and better alignment with OECD principles.

Key actions

• Lead structured discussions on rural-urban interdependencies.

• Gather and analyse evidence on rural-urban connections, both quantitative (flows, commuting, service access) and qualitative (priorities expressed by rural and urban councillors).

• Publish rural-urban fact sheets or reports that reflect conditions and linkages across their territories.

• Facilitate collaboration between rural and urban councillors to ensure regional plans (RSES) reflect both perspectives.

• Pilot “functional area” planning to bridge administrative gaps (since boundaries for economic, climate and enterprise agencies do not align with Regional Assembly boundaries).

• Collaborate with the DRCDG to refine rural evidence, for example, using the DRCDG’s “rural intelligence” or data from the State of Rural Ireland reports.

Local authorities

Ireland’s LAs remain constrained by limited discretion, centralised oversight and fragmented delivery structures. While the DRCDG cannot meaningfully influence how the gamut of programmes is designed, funded and operated, it can play a critical role in joining them up at the local level. This co‑ordination could occur at two levels.

• First, the DRCDG could work with specific units within national departments that have a major impact on rural areas to help ensure that rural areas are considered in policy and programme design.

• Second, it could work at the LA level with local staff to help them develop processes for identifying complementarities among national programmes that create local synergies. One way this already occurs is through national departments, including the DRCDG, placing LA officials where programme delivery takes place. Given the relatively small number of LAs, strengthening this type of co‑ordination is a relatively low-cost exercise with potentially significant benefits. However, it should be noted that delegated staff may be more loyal to their home agency rather than the local community.

Some of this already occurs through officials embedded in LAs, but introducing an actor whose only role is to broker relationships among the core line departments at the local level has the potential to greatly expand joined-up delivery. It must be clear that the DRCDG is not seeking to manage or restructure other departments’ programmes, but only to find ways to link their implementation to help create better outcomes. Their presence could be time limited, and they could help pilot new practices such as multi-year funding envelopes and outcome contracts with a small number of LAs to build service delivery capacity. Even modest increases in local flexibility, through discretionary funding or ring-fenced support for analytical capacity, could deliver significant benefits by enabling more entrepreneurial planning and stronger urban‑rural linkages. Moreover, strengthening and formalising these linkages would be a relatively low-cost way to increase impact.

Better co‑ordinate overlaps among institutions in local delivery

Finally, this facilitation role should extend to clarifying the overlapping structures that currently fragment local delivery. Confusion between LDCs, LCDCs and LAGs creates duplication, administrative burden and weak alignment. The DRCDG could also convene a stakeholder group with representatives from these entities across regions, both where co‑operation works well and where it does not, to elicit actionable feedback. This would help clarify mandates, reduce overlap and strengthen alignment between local, regional and national strategies. Taken together, these measures would enhance subnational governance capacity, reduce the transaction costs that currently weigh on delivery and enable more coherent, place‑sensitive implementation of national priorities.

Key actions

• Institutionalise mechanisms for co‑ordination across the national, regional and local levels.

• Strengthen regional assemblies as rural intelligence and co‑ordination hubs.

• Provide LAs with modest discretionary funding and multi-year outcome contracts to encourage innovation.

• Introduce rural delivery facilitators to support local inter-departmental collaboration.

• Clarify mandates and reduce overlap to respond to perceived tensions between LDCs and LCDCs.

• Supply rural intelligence and technical support to assemblies and LAs.

• Co‑ordinate with non-rural departments to ensure rural sensitivity in programme design.

• Pilot and evaluate subnational delivery models to inform future decentralisation.

Rebalance volunteer dependence through professionalisation, training and support structures

Ireland’s volunteer infrastructure is well-developed by international standards. However, continuous adaptation and investment are needed to address rural vulnerabilities and changing volunteer demographics in order to maintain and enhance community resilience and service quality. Research in Irish settings shows a direct link between volunteer dependence and the risk of service gaps, especially where burnout, recruitment barriers and geographic isolation reduce the reliability or continuity of essential services. To sustain the tradition of volunteerism while avoiding over-dependence, action is needed on several fronts.

• Fund core posts in areas of highest volunteer substitution: Discussions with Irish stakeholders highlighted that over-reliance on volunteers creates fragility where core public services depend on unpaid labour. Targeted funding for essential posts, combined with formal training and induction, would ensure that volunteers do not replace staff in sensitive or high-demand areas. This approach protects service quality while sustaining volunteer engagement.

• Introduce equity mechanisms so low-volunteer areas still receive services: Volunteer capacity varies widely across Ireland, with rural and peripheral areas sometimes lacking the networks available elsewhere. Equity mechanisms, such as roving teams or pooled delivery models, could ensure that communities with fewer volunteers are not left behind. These models help maintain minimum service standards even in areas with weak volunteer bases.

• Clarify volunteer roles with clear guardrails: To optimise results, volunteers must be treated as complements, not substitutes, for paid professional staff. Clear role boundaries and programme guardrails can prevent “random interventions” and ensure that community initiatives align with local strategies. Defining these roles improves morale, safeguards quality and ensures sustainability of both professional and volunteer contributions.

• Invest in volunteer support infrastructure: Ireland’s well-developed volunteer base requires ongoing capacity building. Further investment in volunteer centres, management systems, training and insurance would help organisations manage participation more effectively without overburdening volunteers. OECD work on volunteering highlights that these systems improve sustainability and reduce hidden costs for communities.

• Diversify models of engagement and service delivery: Over-dependence on a narrow pool of volunteers risks burnout. Encouraging alternative models, such as episodic, intergenerational or digital volunteering, would broaden participation while reducing pressure on core groups. These models can also attract new cohorts, including younger people or those with limited time.

• Encourage hybrid and social enterprise approaches: Hybrid organisations that combine professional staff with volunteers, or generate independent income through social enterprise models, can offer more resilient and consistent service delivery. Encouraging such models would reduce dependence on government grants or a small base of regular volunteers, while enabling more sustainable community initiatives.

• Continuously review volunteer dependence and resilience: Finally, governments should treat volunteerism as a dynamic system requiring regular evaluation. Continuous policy review, evidence gathering and community feedback would ensure that volunteer engagement remains positive, balanced and sustainable. The OECD paper “Unleashing the potential of volunteering for local development” sets out six approaches to achieve this balance, many of which are directly relevant to Ireland (OECD, 2024[26]).

Box 1.7. How other countries rebalance volunteer dependence

The 2024 OECD paper “Unleashing the potential of volunteering for local development” highlights six strategies that countries can use to rebalance dependence on volunteers while maintaining strong community and civic engagement, and in some case attract more.

1. Strengthen paid professional services: Increase investment in core public services and paid staff to ensure continuity and expertise, especially for essential functions in health, social care and community infrastructure. Offer targeted grants or subsidies to help community groups hire part-time co‑ordinators or administrators, reducing reliance on unpaid volunteer management.

2. Clarify and formalise volunteer roles: Clearly distinguish volunteer roles from those of paid staff, avoiding overlap or “replacement”. Fair task division improves morale and reduces conflict, as shown by international research in professional-volunteer collaboration. Define boundaries for volunteer tasks to ensure compliance with professional, legal and safeguarding standards, particularly in sensitive areas like healthcare and social services.

3. Support infrastructure and capacity building: Invest in volunteer management systems (e.g. volunteer centres, training, insurance and support tools) to sustain participation and improve effectiveness without overburdening volunteers or organisations. Encourage sector‑wide collaboration and resource sharing to avoid isolating volunteer-run organisations.

4. Diversify service delivery and engagement: Promote alternative models for community participation, such as short-term, episodic, remote or intergenerational volunteering. This broadens the base of involvement while reducing pressure on a core group of regular volunteers. Digital tools and innovation grants can also help overcome transport or time constraints.

5. Enhance funding for hybrid and social enterprise models: Support hybrid organisations that combine volunteering with paid staff or generate independent income. Encourage social enterprise and income diversification so that community services do not rely solely on government grants or volunteer contributions.

6. Ensure continuous policy review and feedback: Regularly assess and publish evidence on volunteer dependence and resilience, using community feedback to inform adjustments. Foster local leadership and participatory governance so communities help shape service delivery, balancing volunteerism with other capacity-building initiatives.

Source: OECD (2024[26]), “Unleashing the potential of volunteering for local development: An international comparison of trends and tools”, https://doi.org/10.1787/deab71bd-en.

Address spatial planning gaps

Adjust the national compact growth model to reflect rural realities (dispersed settlement networks)

Irish spatial planning policy has implicitly adopted the Irish rural idyll as its framework for housing, transport and economic activity. Spatial planning starts from a national perspective, but rural areas have economic functions that require uses of land that differ from farming so, it is important that this diversity is better understood. Compact growth is the objective for cities and larger towns, as recognised in the National Planning Framework. Through the Sustainable Residential Development and Compact Settlements Guidelines, compact growth is now also being applied to villages and rural settlements. However, in many rural regions where networks of small, dispersed settlements form an interconnected economic and social system, compact growth has less relevance (Schaffer, Marcouiller and Deller, 2004[27]). It is less operational and less tailored and this is where ORF II could help.

Leverage environmental assets for green economy strategies tailored to rural contexts

As discussed in Chapter 2, rural Ireland is well-positioned to benefit from the green transition: renewable energy investments, bioeconomy projects and circular economy initiatives are already concentrated outside major cities. However, maximising this potential requires parallel investments in green skills and forward-looking planning to ensure rural communities capture not just the infrastructure but also the jobs, value chains and innovation opportunities.

The green transition agenda is largely driven through national climate and skills policies, but its place-based rural and settlement lens is weak. It is important to ensure that rural areas do not just become “sites” for renewable infrastructure without fully participating in the economic value created. For example, rural areas should not just generate electricity but directly use some of that electricity for local economic development. The DRCDG can play a role, by leveraging its convening power and rural intelligence function to identify where green opportunities intersect with rural labour markets, education pathways and enterprise development. This builds ownership, reduces resistance and allows rural actors to identify opportunities that fit their assets (wind, biomass, ecotourism, recycling hub). Climate adaptation should integrate sustainable place-based heritage practices with research and innovation, promoting traditional and nature-based solutions that also contribute to climate mitigation (DHLGH 2025).

Foresight-based stakeholder processes pilots should be focused on green transition scenarios. These sessions could explore:

• Where are jobs most at risk in rural sectors (peat, fossil fuel-related transport, traditional construction)?

• Where are green jobs most likely to emerge (renewable energy, retrofitting, sustainable agriculture, ecosystem services, circular economy)?

• What spatial patterns matter (towns, hinterlands, remote areas)?

Green skills planning is being developed centrally (through the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, SOLAS, the Higher Education Authority, etc.), but without a strong rural lens. ORF II could support this effort by encouraging initiatives that show where job losses and gains are likely to hit rural communities. This evidence base would allow the DRCDG and other government departments at the national and subnational levels to collaborate based on more concrete rural data. The aim is to ensure that training provision and reskilling initiatives reflect rural realities (e.g. proximity to renewable projects, need for mobile training facilities, integration of SMEs into green supply chains). Foresight methods can also help map how rural economies will be affected by job losses in carbon-intensive sectors and the emergence of new green roles. These insights should then be integrated into town strategies, SME support programmes and regional planning.

Key actions

• Identify rural green opportunities: Use rural intelligence dashboards to track green investments, jobs at risk and emerging skill needs in rural areas.

• Convene foresight sessions: Bring together regional assemblies, LAs, education providers and business networks to anticipate and plan for green labour market transitions.

• Link green opportunities with SME development: Ensure that supports for rural businesses include pathways to participate in renewable supply chains, bioeconomy projects, repair and regeneration to tackle vacancy and dereliction, and local circular economy initiatives.

• Embed rural perspectives in skills strategies: Work with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and regional training boards to ensure green skills curricula reflect rural employment realities.

• Pilot regional green skills partnerships: Use the regional assembly framework to test collaborative models that link training providers, employers and LAs.

Make rural regions attractive places to live and work

Balance Town Centre First with a wider rural-hinterland lens

Ireland’s Town Centre First policy is a strength. Revitalisation of rural towns is central to balanced regional development. The focus on the reuse of buildings, town centre housing and greater visibility for small towns aligns with the OECD’s objective of making regions more attractive to live and work in, while improving service delivery (OECD, 2023[28]). It provides a coherent response to rural decline, but, as several interviews revealed, an exclusive emphasis on towns risks neglecting the wider hinterlands, areas that are also essential for housing, land use and business location decisions.

Some businesses noted that they would prefer to locate in the hinterland but are incentivised to cluster closer to town centres due to how supports and resources are distributed. While environmental and infrastructure considerations rightly play a role in this, it also raises questions about how to accommodate certain types of rural economic activity that may be better suited to non‑urban locations; planning permissions also appear to be easier to obtain in towns. The hinterland is a functional extension of the town centre: places where housing, land and business activities can complement ongoing revitalisation efforts. There could also be missed opportunities to leverage the hinterland for uses beyond agriculture (e.g. space for SMEs, green economy initiatives or hybrid live-work models).

Spatial choices (town versus hinterland) directly affect local labour markets, SME growth and investment opportunities. This makes it an economic development issue as well as a planning one. Rural investors are diverse: some will thrive in walkable town centre settings, while others require peripheral or land-based assets (logistics, renewable energy, creative hubs, etc.). Without a dual focus, policy could miss one segment of rural opportunity. It is important to continue to support town centre revitalisation, while at the same time, integrate hinterland opportunities into spatial and economic planning. This helps attract both entrepreneurs and more space-intensive investors.

Over the years, Ireland has increasingly used foresight practices in government policy planning and policymaking frameworks (OECD, 2023[29]; OECD, 2021[30]). Ireland’s government even partnered with the OECD to develop the capacity for strategic foresight, defining it as the process of envisioning multiple future scenarios, identifying early signs of disruptive change and stress-testing strategies against potential shocks (OECD, 2022[31]). The DRCDG can host some foresight sessions on this issue bringing together LAs, regional assemblies, business owners, tourism boards, community representatives and other stakeholders. These sessions should be anchored by rural intelligence (e.g. six-way typology, data on trends) and used to explore different spatial scenarios and future needs of towns and their hinterlands, such as demand for business space, green economy projects or hybrid working hubs. These insights can then be fed into the next cycle of national and regional spatial planning. Portugal’s foresight centre illustrates how governments can institutionalise anticipatory planning to support balanced territorial strategies (Box 1.8).

Box 1.8. Portugal’s PlanAPP: Using foresight to drive planning strategies

Portugal’s strategic foresight centre, PlanAPP, plays a key role in improving government co‑ordination, capacity for futures thinking and integration of foresight into policy planning across sectors. PlanAPP is designed to support long-term, cross-sectoral strategies by providing evidence-based foresight to inform decision making and help the government anticipate emerging challenges in its planning cycles. Its work feeds into national strategies by advising ministries and public agencies, ensuring cross‑sectoral policy co‑ordination and future readiness. PlanAPP’s outputs may include reports, foresight briefings, scenario planning documents and inputs into official multi-year policy documents. It provides an example of how foresight can be systematically included in government planning cycles.

Source: Monteiro, B. and R. Dal Borgo (2023[32]), “Supporting decision making with strategic foresight: An emerging framework for proactive and prospective governments”, https://doi.org/10.1787/1d78c791-en.

Key actions

• Use rural intelligence (six-way split, labour market evidence) to demonstrate how hinterland areas contribute differently to the economy than town cores.

• Work with regional assemblies to embed rural-sensitive perspectives in RSES.

• Work with LAs to identify where hinterland opportunities exist (e.g. business parks, land repurposing) and balance these with town centre renewal.

• Encourage the testing of more flexible planning models in selected areas that combine town centre renewal with hinterland business attraction, then scale lessons.

• Conduct evidence-supported foresight sessions to bring in the community perspective.

Take a differentiated approach to crafting tailored strategies to enhance attractiveness

Rural areas adjacent to cities face pressure from rising housing costs, commuting dynamics and service congestion; mid-sized rural areas often struggle to retain skilled labour despite strong SME bases; and remote rural regions contend with declining services and acute recruitment challenges in sectors such as healthcare and education. Using rural intelligence – particularly Ireland’s six-way typology – enables tailored responses aligned with the functional realities of each place.

The six-way split already functions as an urban-proximity model rather than a purely rural typology: it reflects a continuum from urban cores to remote areas. Both the OECD Principles on Rural Policy and the OECD Principles on Urban Policy share the goal of maximising urban-rural linkages as a foundation for sustainable territorial development. In Ireland’s case, this principle is especially relevant given the close spatial interdependence between rural and urban labour markets, housing and service systems.

ORF II should explicitly strengthen this urban-rural continuum by making functional linkages visible, measurable and actionable. It should move beyond viewing towns and rural hinterlands as separate policy spaces and instead frame them as interdependent nodes within shared economic, social and environmental systems. The National Planning Framework acknowledges these linkages, but there is limited systematic mapping of rural town labour flows, commuting and service dependency analyses are not routine, and rural intelligence is not consistently integrated into planning or economic strategies. Thus, Ireland recognises the concept in principle but has not translated it into tools, metrics or governance mechanisms. ORF II can help to fill that gap. by encouraging the integration of rural intelligence into spatial planning and economic development frameworks, mapping commuting patterns, labour mobility and service dependencies between rural settlements and nearby towns.

To this end, ORF II could focus on:

• Housing and land use planning, recognising functional housing markets that span town boundaries and adjacent rural zones.

• Labour mobility and transport, linking compact-growth strategies with transport investment to support rural commuting and hybrid work.

• Shared service delivery, piloting inter-municipal or inter-county collaboration to extend health, education and childcare services.

• Facilitating the linking of smaller settlements so they can share the demand for local goods and services among themselves and reduce longer distance commuting and other travel.

• Renewable generation and land management, promoting joint urban-rural projects on energy transition, waste management and climate adaptation.

Address housing gaps through community-led approaches

Meeting rural Ireland’s housing needs requires co‑ordinated action across regulatory reform, investment in infrastructure, targeted support for affordable housebuilding and policies that address demographic and workforce trends (OECD, 2025[33]). ORF II should emphasise that addressing rural housing is not only a social priority but also an economic one, critical for sustaining rural labour markets and ensuring balanced demographic renewal. The next strategy should increase the focus on improving housing supply in rural areas through community-led, place-based approaches, enabling regions to respond flexibly to local needs.

ORF II should encourage the development of a Rural Housing Enabler Network (RHEN) pilot to facilitate these efforts and bridge the technical and administrative gaps that often prevent rural communities from progressing local housing solutions. Such a network could act as a support mechanism, helping communities identify housing needs, broker partnerships and navigate regulatory and planning systems, particularly where local expertise or resources are lacking (see Box 1.9). Initiatives are under way to pilot community-led approaches, including upcycling projects, local trusts and co-operative models (CLH, 2025[34]; The Housing Agency, 2025[35]). However, these are not yet part of an integrated “enabler” system. A pilot RHEN could be funded drawing on successful models in England and Wales (United Kingdom), and embed it within existing rural governance frameworks (LDCs, LCDCs and regional assemblies).

Box 1.9. Rural Housing Enabler Network: England and Wales

Enablers act as “honest brokers”, facilitators who work between local communities, parish councils, housing associations, planning authorities and developers. They carry out housing needs surveys, pinpoint suitable development sites and provide impartial advice to communities, LAs and developers. Rural housing enablers (RHEs) support the planning application process, mediate local concerns and help access funding. Their focus is to deliver homes that meet local needs, not just generic targets. They are often embedded in local rural community councils or umbrella networks and share best practice and technical support across counties. They build trust by engaging residents and local councils from the earliest stage, helping them define what types of homes are most needed, such as affordable homes for young families, elderly residents or key worker. They guide communities through site selection and design processes, ensuring new developments fit local character and gain wider support.

The RHEN model in England and Wales is widely viewed as best practice.

• England: The Action with Communities in Rural England network supports over 38 local rural community councils, each hosting RHEs serving their county. The network functions as a platform for peer support, technical expertise sharing and national advocacy. RHEs work closely with LAs and housing associations to unlock difficult sites and facilitate new builds, often on rural exception sites. Evaluations (2025) show RHEs enabled hundreds of rural affordable housing projects, returning significant social value for every pound invested.

• Wales: The Welsh RHEs operate regionally (since 2004) and are recognised in government reviews as highly effective. They have helped deliver hundreds of rural affordable homes and influenced rural planning policy. The Welsh network focuses strongly on sustainability, community buy-in and the development of small-scale housing on exception sites, often tailored for local population retention and renewal. Their approach includes rigorous housing needs assessment, mediation of diverse stakeholder interests, and ensuring rural developments remain sensitive to landscape and heritage concerns.

Sources: ACRE (2024[36]), , “Only 1 in 6 rural councils have made use of key affordable housing option”, https://acre.org.uk/rural-exception-sites-affordable-housing/ (accessed on 30 August 2025); Barcud Cyf (2025[37]), “Rural Housing Enabler”, https://www.barcud.cymru/rural-housing-enabler/ (accessed on 22 August 2025).

Key actions

• Prioritise rural housing as a key driver of economic and demographic resilience.

• Promote community-led housing models (co-housing, self-builds, trusts, co-operatives) within national housing and spatial planning frameworks.

• Encourage collaboration between the DRCDG, housing and regional assemblies to align housing with labour market and service access needs.

• Pilot a RHEN, co‑ordinating national and local partners to provide technical and planning support to rural communities.

• Embed the network within existing governance structures (regional assemblies, LCDCs and LDCs) to ensure long-term sustainability.

• Use rural intelligence dashboards to identify rural housing needs and track outcomes.

Strengthening services in health and well-being

Four structural challenges shape health outcomes in rural Ireland: i) persistent general practitioner (GP) and healthcare workforce shortages have reduced service accessibility, affecting well-being and population retention; ii) an ageing population that is driving greater service demand and care needs; iii) good but uneven digital and physical infrastructure that limits the reach of telemedicine and mobile services; and iv) under-developed linkages between health and rural policy, leaving opportunities for co‑ordination untapped.

ORF II should explicitly recognise rural health and care access as a determinant of quality of life, population retention and labour market participation. This requires integrating health outcomes and service access indicators into national rural monitoring frameworks. ORF II should establish a Health-Health Service Executive (HSE) Rural Health Access Taskforce to develop cross-sector strategies, such as shared workforce data and co‑ordinated service planning at the regional and local levels. It should also promote the use of functional rural typologies (adjacent, mid-sized, remote) to tailor health-service models, enabling the HSE and LAs to adapt telemedicine, mobile clinics and GP incentive schemes to local conditions.

The DRCDG can strengthen its enabling role by investing in the infrastructure and community capacity that underpin health access. Broadband connection points and digital hubs can be used to:

• Host health‑related outreach teleconsultations.

• Facilitate or support digital literacy sessions for older residents and community health information events.

• Pilot co-location of health outreach within community centres or digital hubs in underserved areas.

• Use Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme and CLÁR funding to support community health initiatives, such as mobile screenings and local transport schemes.

• Encourage LDCs to partner with the HSE on place-based health access projects.

Through co‑ordination with the Department of Transport and the National Transport Authority’s Connecting Ireland plan, ORF II could support community-transport pilots focused on access to GP and hospital appointments. The DRCDG should request that LCDCs and LECPs include rural health and well-being objectives in their next planning cycles, accompanied by guidance or templates for including health indicators in monitoring. Eligibility under the Town and Village Renewal Scheme and the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund could be extended to projects improving access to community healthcare or well-being spaces. Pilot projects could also demonstrate rural telemedicine, shared-practice hubs or mobile GP/health teams.

Key actions

• Frame health as a pillar of rural well-being and resilience.

• Embed rural health access in rural proofing.

• Promote spatial differentiation in service delivery.

• Invest in digital and physical infrastructure that supports telehealth.

• Leverage community development networks for health outreach.

• Enhance rural mobility for healthcare access.

• Integrate health into local and regional planning.

• Support local capacity and innovation.

Foster agricultural viability, diversification and green transition

Rural development can act as a bridge between agricultural modernisation and non-farm diversification. The majority of Irish farm households operate smallholdings that cannot generate sufficient farm income to provide a sustainable standard of living. While these landscapes contribute to Ireland’s cultural identity and tourism appeal, farm viability remains constrained. Two main pathways exist to raise household income: achieving greater efficiency through farm consolidation, often limited by fragmented land ownership and expanding off-farm employment and enterprise opportunities through broader rural economic development. Of course, these two pathways are macro drivers and, within them, there is room for multiple on-farm strategies, including conversion, intensification and diversification.

Farm succession typically occurs late in the life cycle, with returning family members taking over holdings near retirement age. This delays investment in modernisation and perpetuates low productivity. Creating vibrant local economies with good employment prospects could alter this dynamic: younger generations could remain in their communities, combine off-farm work with farming and prepare earlier to assume farm management. This would strengthen both the economic base of rural areas and the long-term sustainability of family farming. ORF II should:

• Position agriculture as an integral component of territorial resilience, by promoting stronger linkages between non-farm diversification and local enterprise development.

• Encourage differentiated approaches across rural typologies to support agri-tourism, short supply chains, renewable energy and ecosystem-service markets.

• Reinforce the need for more co‑ordination between the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), the DRCDG and DETE/Enterprise Ireland to align Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) support with rural enterprise and community development measures.

The DRCDG can leverage opportunities and resources such as LEADER, the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund and the Town and Village Renewal Scheme to back projects that integrate farming with local enterprise: crafts, food, small-scale processing, renewable energy, heritage or ecotourism. It can support community-based infrastructure such as shared processing facilities and local food hubs that add value to farm output. ORF II should facilitate training, green skills development and remote-work opportunities through broadband and digital hub initiatives for farm families. It should also work with the DAFM to promote place-based pilot projects that test new models of small-farm viability under climate, green transition and market pressures.

Key actions

• Align rural and agricultural policy through structured inter-departmental co‑ordination.

• Tailor diversification support to rural typologies.

• Invest in value-added local supply chains and community-based agri-innovation.

• Strengthen youth engagement, green skills training and early-succession planning in farming.

• Target off-farm employment opportunities for small-farm households to diversify household income.

• Work with the DAFM on enhancing the visual appeal of rural Ireland by helping to finance fence- and farm-building renovations.

Table 1.3. Recommendations of the Rural Policy Review of Ireland

Recommendation	Key actions	ORFII/ DRCDG (where feasible)
Strengthen rural economic development through targeted supports and labour market strategies.	Understand and map local labour markets using the Central Statistics Office (CSO) six‑way split for rural classification	Convene cross-ministry and local‑business dialogues to reveal rural challenges (e.g. water, housing, infrastructure)
	Convene regular rural SME fora to bring rural business owners into policy dialogue	Use rural intelligence to inform enterprise and skills policies
	Bring together local actors in "discovery spaces” to scan for diversification niches	Strengthen communication between LEOs and entrepreneurs to close information gaps
	Address gaps in SME funding, especially for non-exporting firms and second-tier suppliers	Encourage regional assemblies to factor rural SMEs into regional enterprise strategies
	Leverage social innovation pathways as training grounds for entrepreneurship	Work with local authorities (LAs) to integrate differentiated labour market insights into local development plans
	Pilot local economic development zones with regional assemblies and enterprise partners	Convene foresight sessions with local stakeholders (business, tourism, community groups, assemblies)
	Bring rural actors into foresight dialogues on the green transition	Supply intelligence to skills authorities to align training strategies with rural needs
	Identify rural-specific green job losses and opportunities using rural intelligence	Support assemblies/LAs in embedding green transition into their strategies
	Engage with the state agency responsible for Further Education and Training (SOLAS)to ensure training and apprenticeship pathways for rural communities	Promote uptake of over-shop housing conversions in rural areas.
	Integrate entrepreneurship and problem-solving skills into secondary and tertiary curricula
	Integrate green opportunities into regional and local development plans
Develop sophisticated rural intelligence and data aligned to typologies	Establish the DRCDG as keeper of rural intelligence, curating cross-government data into accessible dashboards	Curate existing datasets across government and academia (not starting from scratch)
	Produce State of Rural Ireland reports (bi-annual)	Partner with universities/expert bodies to pilot analysis
	Mainstream CSO six‑way classification in policymaking to improve rural differentiation	Provide data in both short “fact sheets” and detailed reports to ministries, regional assemblies and LAs
	Strengthen rural proofing with evidence-based tools
Strengthen implementation and monitoring	Differentiate priorities into direct (DRCDG) versus indirect (other departments) remit with dual-track monitoring	Maintain visibility on all government actions affecting rural areas to reinforce incentives across ministries
	Shift from activity counts to outcome-oriented dashboards	Act as guardian and broker, supplying rural intelligence to other departments and keeping rural matters on their agendas
	Reduce administrative burden by moving to annual progress reviews with more qualitative indicators	Build a national rural data hub with quality of life indicators and bottom-up monitoring tools
Strengthen capacity at the subnational level to support rural outcomes	Empower LAs in selected domains (innovation, digital hubs, circular economy)	Convene regional assemblies and local councils to strengthen rural-sensitive planning
	Strengthen regional assemblies' analytical capacity and rural-sensitive mandates	Deploy time-bound facilitators to broker cross-department delivery locally
	Rebalance accountability so LAs answer more directly to communities	Establish stakeholder group to clarify mandates and reduce duplication
	Facilitate linkages among non-rural programmes at the LA level	Pilot subnational models to evaluate future decentralisation.
	Clarify overlap between local development companies (LDCs), local community development communities (LCDCs) and local action groups (LAGs)
Rebalance volunteer dependence through professionalisation, training and support structures	Fund core posts where volunteer substitution is highest	Provide targeted grants to professionalise high-dependence services
	Provide training/induction and clear role boundaries	Support volunteer centres and pooled delivery
	Develop equity mechanisms for low-volunteer areas	Ensure national policy frameworks reinforce volunteer sustainability through regulatory evaluation
	Introduce programme guardrails to ensure strategic fit	Encourage hybrid and social enterprise approaches.
Address spatial planning gaps	Ensure that national spatial planning frameworks (National Development Plan, National Planning Framework, Housing Plan) reflect the functional diversity of rural areas	Strengthen co‑ordination with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and regional assemblies to embed the rural lens in planning
	Encourage compact-growth strategies that balance town vitality and dispersed settlement networks	Use rural intelligence to demonstrate how compact growth can adapt to different rural typologies
	Promote foresight-informed planning for green transition and land use	Convene foresight-based green transition planning sessions to link spatial, labour and enterprise strategies
Make rural regions attractive places to live and work	Embed the “town–hinterland” continuum in ORF II to strengthen balanced settlement systems	Use rural intelligence to map service gaps and quality-of-life disparities
	Integrate housing, health and connectivity considerations into the attractiveness agenda	Support pilots that integrate town centre revitalisation with hinterland development
	Promote urban-rural linkages as a core policy pillar, leveraging the six-way split	Encourage multi-department collaboration on health and housing delivery in rural contexts
		Work with regional assemblies to embed rural-sensitive perspectives in RSES.
		Work with local authorities to identify hinterland opportunities (e.g. business parks).
		Co‑ordinate community-led housing initiatives and pilot a rural housing enabler network
Foster agricultural viability, diversification and green transition	Target off-farm employment opportunities for small-farm households to diversify household income	Align rural and agricultural policy through structured inter‑departmental co‑ordination
	Work with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on enhancing the visual appeal of rural Ireland by helping to finance fence and farm building renovations	Tailor diversification supports to rural typologies
		Invest in value-added local supply chains and community‑based agri-innovation
		Strengthen youth engagement, green skills training and early-succession planning in farming

Conclusion

As the assessment demonstrates, rural Ireland has distinctive strengths: population growth when other OECD rural areas decline, a strong policy framework unique among member states, and institutional infrastructure for place-based policy development. However, the central challenge is not lack of policy ambition it is more varied. Ireland's rural areas feature a mix of different types of rural regions from hinterlands to remote, yet policies rarely distinguish between them. Compact-growth strategies designed for cities are applied to dispersed settlements. Some domestically oriented rural SMEs struggle to access funding. Regional assemblies and local authorities have mandates but, in some cases, either lack a rural lens or the resources and discretion to act.

The recommendations in this report can be summarised as interconnected actions:

• Governing better for place that draws on differentiated rural intelligence has more innovative monitoring systems, and strengthened multi-level governance capacity

• Building a resilient rural economy that enables entrepreneurial discovery identifies diversification opportunities beyond agriculture coupled with tailored labour market strategies.

• Make places work by adapting spatial planning to rural settlement patterns, linking housing delivery to workforce needs, and balancing town-centre renewal with hinterland economic opportunities.

• Make rural life work by rebalancing volunteer dependence, improving and investing in spatially differentiated service delivery models.

• Anchor agriculture in territorial resilience by linking farm diversification to local enterprise, targeting off-farm employment for smallholders, and co-ordinating agricultural and rural development policy.

These recommendations are mutually reinforcing and should be prioritised in the next phase of Irish rural policy. Rural intelligence enables differentiated strategies. Differentiated strategies require subnational capacity. Subnational capacity depends on resources and discretion. Effective monitoring demonstrates impact and builds support for continued investment. By implementing these recommendations, the government can transform Ireland's rural development approach into a one that delivers measurable improvements and outcomes.

References

[36] ACRE (2024), “Only 1 in 6 rural councils have made use of key affordable housing option”, Action with Communities in Rural England, https://acre.org.uk/rural-exception-sites-affordable-housing/ (accessed on 30 August 2025).

[18] Banque des Territoires (2023), “Territoires d’industrie, a mechanism to accelerate industrial development - Territories of industry - The programme for industrial relocation - Industrial ecology - Vocational training”, https://www.banquedesterritoires.fr/territoires-dindustrie/la-carte (accessed on 30 August 2025).

[37] Barcud Cyf (2025), “Rural Housing Enabler”, https://www.barcud.cymru/rural-housing-enabler/ (accessed on 22 August 2025).

[8] Chambers Ireland (2025), Consultation on the National Housing Plan 2025-2030 - Submission by Chambers Ireland, https://chambers.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Chambers-Ireland-Submission-regarding-the-National-Housing-Plan-2025-2030-May-2025.pdf (accessed on 16 August 2025).

[34] CLH (2025), “Leading the Way for Community-Led Housing”, Common Ground CLH, https://commongroundclh.ie/ (accessed on 20 August 2025).

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Note

← 1.  LEADER was launched by the EU in 1991 to address rural economic development. In Ireland, LEADER is delivered by Local Action Groups (LAGs) to supports private enterprises and community groups who contribute to quality of life and economic activity in rural areas. (Government of Ireland, 2025[41])