Residential sprawl and accompanying car dependence have become irreversible and means the case for further investment in public transport systems such as the LUAS has been undermined, an economist has said.

Public transport solutions such a fixed-line rapid transit system are more appropriate to a strategy of sprawl prevention, Mr Colm McCarthy, of DKM Economic Consultants, writes in the Irish Banking Review.

However, the zone around Dublin is already a low-density urban sprawl, and the the car is the best solution for sprawl regions. "It is time to accept that Dublin, unfortunately, now resembles a US sunbelt city, irreversibly car-dependent, and that the sprawl which has already occurred severely limits the potential of rail-based public transport solutions.

"There is nothing to be said for compounding the errors in land-use policy by proceeding as if they had not happened," Mr McCarthy writes.

In the same edition three members of the Economic and Social Research Institute say the "consistent poverty" index it has developed shows a sharp decline in such poverty in recent years. Different measures have come to varying results in relation to poverty trends in recent years.