My Department is currently finalising the completion of a report and action plan on accelerating infrastructure delivery in our economy. It will be brought to Government in the coming weeks. It will set out a series of high-impact reforms targeted at the most significant barriers to the timely delivery of critical infrastructure. These reforms will have a clear focus on reducing timelines and significantly improving outcomes. They will be targeted at the most impactful barriers to infrastructure delivery as outlined in the report published in July. This report identified 12 barriers to the effective delivery of infrastructure in our country. The most significant barriers identified are broadly categorised across three headings, which were set out in the report. The first is the regulatory environment, including the growth and complexity of legislation; policy statements and strategies; how consents, licences and permissions for development are obtained; the timelines for these processes, engagement between the regulatory bodies and project developers; and consistency across regulatory bodies. The second heading is the planning and legal systems, including the increasing role that the courts play in infrastructure projects; the cascading consequences of these decisions through development cycles; and the impact that the uncertainty in planning and legal decisions is having on projects. The third heading is internal systems, such as how the Government allocates funding and develops a credible project pipeline; the rules applied to the development of projects; and how contractors are procured to undertake the works necessary for a project. The task force is providing strategic guidance and practical insights into the development of actions to address these barriers. This work is also informed by extensive engagement in the economy with delivery bodies, regulators, and industry representatives, as well as international best practice. Some reforms had already been introduced when we published the NDP. We have given funding certainty of €102 billion from 2026 to 2030, which is €34 billion over the previous allocation. It provides greater certainty for key strategic projects such as MetroLink, the greater Dublin drainage scheme and the eastern and midlands water supply project, as well as the prioritisation of funding for critical infrastructure, such as electricity, water, and transport to help the supply of new homes and economic competitiveness.
Sentiment score: 0.29
Departments are in the process of developing sectoral investment plans to allocate their capital resources and these will be published in the coming weeks.
Sentiment score: 0.00
There are extensive actions across every barrier and the plan is to have the majority of the practical actions being delivered in 2026. Every action we take is about shortening and truncating timelines for the development lifecycle of critical infrastructure, which is simply taking too long. That means we need to increase our risk appetite. We have too much process and too many decision-makers and there is risk aversion across our systems. Secondly, within government, there is the question of where we can control processes or procedures, so that we can cut unnecessary levels of process which do not add value but simply add time. We have had a forensic assessment of this in recent months. The response to it around the infrastructure report which we publish involves practical actions which will demonstrate shortening of timelines for critical infrastructure and other infrastructure across our economy. On the point about housing, water and wastewater treatment plants are central to the delivery of new homes and many of Irish Water's capital projects are taking far too long. We have secondments from Irish Water and the task force in my Department. They make a positive contribution to the whole area of reform.
Sentiment score: -0.10
That is why we have corrected that around having over 5% GNI* allocated for critical infrastructure, which is one of the highest levels of infrastructure investment across EU counterparts. It did not take any article in any newspaper for me to prioritise infrastructure delivery. Since the brief was allocated to my Department, we have stood up a task force, developed an evidence base and published the report in July on the evidence base, which is now informing the various reforms which we will introduce and set out in the coming weeks. That is about cutting unnecessary processes within government and the State. We have a complicated structure of regulation in our economy which needs simplification, and not only at EU level. We need to prioritise domestic simplification and reform to do things quicker, to develop and facilitate economic growth and, ultimately, to deliver infrastructure quicker and build more homes. That is the central metric which will underpin all the work on infrastructure. We will set out the detail around that when it is published in the coming weeks.
Sentiment score: -0.01
I thank Deputy O'Callaghan. Securing value for money is an ongoing priority for the Government. It is at the heart of all decision-making at every stage of policy or programme lifecycles. It is about securing the efficient and effective use of public resources and improving living standards and infrastructure for the people of our country. Policy analysis is a core component of public expenditure management and value for money frameworks. A wide range of policy and expenditure analysis is undertaken and published by Departments annually. These can take the form of staff papers, focused policy assessments, spending reviews and analytical notes, among others. My Department plays a central role in this process by regularly analysing expenditure trends and policies. Alongside this, individual Departments have responsibility for evaluating the efficiency and impact of their own programmes and policies. Since 2024, approximately 59 papers have been published by Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service, IGEES, staff across government. During 2025, it produced policy analysis and expenditure evaluations on a broad range of topics, including disability services, social housing, migration and labour market trends, statutory sick leave, well-being, education, transport and youth participation. This analytical research has continued to play a key role in supporting evidence-based policymaking. In addition, my Department continues to ensure evidence and analysis is at the centre of policymaking within the budgetary process. This is communicated through a range of publications including the annual expenditure report and the public service performance report, as well as our expenditure and policy evaluation papers across a range of topics. In preparation for budget 2026, my Department undertook several pieces of analysis to support resource allocation. The public service performance report was published in June and it detailed how Departments performed against targets set in the Revised Estimates process. We published the national development plan review in July. We spoke about that previously. Importantly, we published the medium-term expenditure framework in September. This is a multiyear public expenditure planning exercise which supports assessment of the resource implications of future policy decisions over the period from 2025 to 2030.
Sentiment score: 0.25
I reject that analysis. Much work across government and in the public service is delivering a significant number of projects on time and on budget. Flippant remarks about particular projects undermine the core work of many people who work across our system. It is important to balance the Deputy's remarks in that context. Since 2024, approximately 59 publications have been authored. In 2025, we have had the Intergenerational Dependence on Social Housing working paper from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage; the Review of Social Housing Delivery and Spend from my Department in January; the Supply and Demand of General Practice in Ireland report, which was published by the Department of Health; the Analytical Paper on the School Meals Programme, which was published in July; the Spending Review: Disability Residential Services report; and the Focused Policy Assessment: HSE Adult Disability Day Services report. I have a long list here which I can send to the Deputy of many papers published by IGEES, which is co-ordinated by my Department, as part of its work across government around spending reviews, value for money and providing policy analysis. There have been extensive publications. I could list many publications from this year, such as the well-being framework. They complement the medium-term expenditure framework, which was an extensive piece of work by the central expenditure division.
Sentiment score: 0.04
I started listing a number of them that have been published. As I said, there have been 59 papers published since 2024. I am happy to send to the Deputy a list of the ones we have published. Indeed, what has informed most of the work in the Department was the medium-term expenditure framework, which did an expenditure analysis of the overall expenditure trends across Government. I am not sure if the Deputy has read it. It looked at the-----
Sentiment score: 0.07
It has been the most extensive detailed piece of work across many of the economists in the Department, looking at the expenditure trends for the past five years and at how we make the policy choices and trade-offs over the next five years, acknowledging some of what was referenced in the Department of Finance report yesterday in terms of changing demographics, the impact of climate change and-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
There are ongoing publications. Indeed, I regularly publish their respective reports. I am not sure who is giving the Deputy that analysis on reports not being published because-----
Sentiment score: 0.18
-----many of the IGEES reports are published. I am not sure if the Deputy read the medium-term expenditure framework. It is a comprehensive, cross-cutting cross-government report as a five-year backward-looking analysis on expenditure trends to inform expenditure for the next five years. It informs a lot of the work that we undertook as part of budget 2026 and will inform the medium-term structural and fiscal plan with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe.
Sentiment score: 0.00