2026-02-12

11. Deputy Joe Neville asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the way in which his Department plans to implement a risk scorecard to enable the acceleration of key infrastructure delivery in the next few decades; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11083/26]

I thank Deputy Neville. In December 2025, the Government published the Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan. It is a comprehensive programme of actions designed to speed up the delivery of critical infrastructure across the State. This action plan responds to well-documented challenges of lengthy development timelines, fragmented processes and rising costs. These have all been identified as major barriers to achieving Ireland’s housing, energy and climate objectives. The plan sets out 30 targeted actions grouped under four areas, namely, legal reform, regulatory reform and simplification, delivery reform, and public acceptance. My Department has already led on a number of reforms to date, including, but not limited to, the drafting process of the general scheme of the critical infrastructure Bill to be progressed during March, which has been published in the Government’s published legislative agenda; the establishment of a regulatory simplification unit, whose work will include reviewing regulatory structures, governance, oversight and accountability and revising and simplifying different legislation and statutes; and preparing reforms to the infrastructure guidelines, which is being progressed this month. I have also launched a new service to accelerate major Government capital investment through the expertise of the National Development Finance Agency. We have had the first meeting of the new joint utilities and transport clearing house to have shared collaboration across sectors and greater delivery and co-operation. Under pillar 3, co-ordination and delivery reform, the aim is to introduce risk appetite statements to enable proportionate oversight and accelerate infrastructure delivery. This action is to provide a better strategic-level risk governance tool that sets a higher level of risk for Government Departments or agencies on what they are willing to tolerate, identifying boundaries on high-risk decisions and wider and clearer expectations for risk oversight. This action is intended to support the creation of a co-ordinated, legally empowered system that reduces delays, improves planning certainty, increases the risk appetite and deals with the wider issues of risk aversion, which have been well documented. Following Government approval, Departments will be asked to define and publish clear, proportionate risk appetite statements for critical infrastructure decisions that can support a higher risk appetite. This will progress better expected benefits of delivery, which would outweigh the potential costs in the context of greater assumed risk. Examples of taking on a higher level of risk could include-----

I thank the Minister.

I will go into that detail shortly.

I thank the Minister very much for his response. I know he is very passionate about this issue, which the Joint Committee on Infrastructure and National Development Plan Delivery has seen. As Vice Chair of that committee, I am very focused on it. As a councillor, I saw a lot of houses being built in north Kildare, for example. I am sure the same applies in the rest of the country. In Celbridge, we need a second bridge. In Leixlip, we need development at the top of Confey and in Maynooth, a relief road is required. These are simple things but we see delays. A change in culture is required across the Civil Service and local authorities. In fairness, we have significant funding available due to good governance. We have €102 billion available to be spent in the next four years and €275 billion to be spent on capital projects over the next nine years. That is extremely welcome. The reason we need to ensure the right culture and accountability are in place across the Civil Service and local authorities is to ensure we get to spend this money. It is really important that we make sure people make decisions. Sometimes, the most difficult thing in the Civil Service is to make a decision because the worst thing people can do is get something wrong. Sometimes, making no decision is actually better for those individuals. That is what we need to control.

I agree with everything the Deputy said and I appreciate his inputs at the infrastructure committee as well. There are well-documented issues with the existing culture, which has been too risk averse, leading to delays and cost increases. It is too process driven. It is about putting a delivery culture and delivery focus first. That means increasing risk appetite, but also taking practical steps, for example, carrying out early site clearance works in advance of or in parallel with another part of the process or forward ordering of key components for critical infrastructure so we can start a project much quicker while waiting for something else to conclude. Putting a lot of steps in parallel involves greater risk appetite if something does not happen as expected. It will come down to increasing risk appetite in multiple areas and decision points in the infrastructure lifecycle. The risk appetite statement is about us backing the public service to do this, which could have an adverse effect in a minority of projects but ultimately will yield better delivery and cut through the risk aversion which is well documented.

I really sympathise with the Minister's final point. Potentially mistakes will be made and we must ensure that people will be backed through the various projects. I am a member of the public accounts committee and we look retrospectively at decisions. We need to ensure that people are backed. The main thing is that they are supported and that proper guidelines are in place so they are not afraid to make decisions. This is at all levels, including at the highest level. The Minister has taken responsibility himself centrally. We need to ensure this responsibility is sent out to all areas, such as to the CEOs of local authorities or further down to the local engineers. We need to see delivery on the ground. We all know how the various people in these roles are judged. The question is whether they are judged and held accountable. We know that ultimately the people in this room will be held accountable in 2029 on the doorsteps. I want to ensure that we deliver these projects so that we will get the response we need from people.

It is about having a clear, greater and more proportionate risk appetite statement for many infrastructure decisions. Ultimately we are measured on delivery and it is a process-driven approach. We have circular analysis and delays that will not narrow the infrastructure gap, which is well documented. The risk appetite statement will set out the expected benefits for delivery for a Department or agency, and how the assumption of greater risk outweighs the potential cost. We know that some of the processes we are trying to cut through and cut out in many instances add a significant level of cost to our overall capital spend, which the infrastructure committee has discussed. We will define and publish these in quarter 2 of this year. This is a clear signal to the public service to get on with delivery and have a delivery focus first. It will allow for a broader rebalancing. In terms of the public accounts committee and others, the risk appetite statements will provide a context in the years to come when, hopefully, we will have a higher level of delivery for the infrastructure committee. This will have to be seen in the context of wider assessments when analysing spend.