2026-01-28

I thank Members of the House for the opportunity to provide an update on the Government’s work to accelerate infrastructure delivery, and to discuss my Department’s role in the management and delivery of capital projects and programmes. In particular, I will outline some of the recent and ongoing developments in my Department, as we implement the actions contained in the accelerating infrastructure action plan which the Government published in December. As we look back on recent weeks and the rupture in the global international order, the case for fundamental reform has never been stronger. The need for high quality, modern infrastructure has never been clearer. The choices we now set in motion on infrastructure delivery will determine our economic competitiveness, our climate resilience, the protection and creation of jobs, and, ultimately, the quality of life enjoyed by people in communities across the country. I am acutely aware of the multifaceted and interconnected challenges the Government faces in infrastructure deficits and the need to prioritise investment in major housing, water, energy and transport projects. In the programme for Government, published one year ago, we made five key commitments for infrastructure delivery. They were: to create a Cabinet committee on infrastructure to drive delivery; to undertake an early review of the national development plan; to review and reform the prioritisation of capital projects in key agencies; to broaden the remit of the National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, to provide expert advice for major infrastructure; and to create a dedicated infrastructure division in my Department, including formation of an accelerating infrastructure task force to assess the implementation of measures to accelerate infrastructure delivery. In the past 12 months, we have delivered on each of these commitments. The Cabinet committee on infrastructure to drive delivery was established in April last year. The review of the national development plan was published in July. Sectoral plans setting out the projects and programmes to be prioritised by each Department over the next five years have been published. The NDFA is broadening its remit for the provision of expert advice on major infrastructure; and the dedicated infrastructure division in my Department was established with a new deputy secretary general appointed last December. Moving beyond the programme for Government commitments and towards the concrete actions that will be taken over the lifetime of this Government, we published the NDP review and the report on engagement and barriers to infrastructure in July and the subsequent Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan in December. These three documents represent an unprecedented increase in investment, a realistic outline of the barriers to infrastructure delivery and a time-bound plan to remove those barriers. The Government has set out annual sectoral allocations for 2026 to 2030, and overall Government capital expenditure ceilings to 2035, leading to a total public capital investment of €275.4 billion over the period to 2035. This includes €202.4 billion in Exchequer voted capital expenditure from 2026 to 2035. Of this, €102.4 billion is being allocated over the five-year period 2026 to 2030, which represents a 30% increase over the previously agreed capital ceilings for the same period. This is an additional €23.9 billion over and above the previous allocation and is further complemented by an investment of €10 billion in equity and fund releases, which is specifically being provided for investment to expansively improve and upgrade infrastructure mega-projects in the water, energy and transport sectors over the period to 2030. Some €3.5 billion in equity funding was provided to ESB Networks and EirGrid in 2025 to fund enhanced energy grid capacity to support the Government's housing and competitiveness objectives. Some €2 billion in equity funding has been provided to Uisce Éireann to enable the delivery of 300,000 additional homes. A further €2.5 billion in funding is being provided to commence the greater Dublin drainage and water supply project over the period to 2030, and €2 billion from the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund will fund and support low-carbon transportation, such as MetroLink. The review prioritised increased investment in critical infrastructure for water, energy, transport and housing to allow us to enable the delivery of hundreds of thousands of additional homes; provide greater opportunities for our enterprise economy and support our international competitiveness; and support all other necessary economic and social development, such as schools, hospitals and further and higher education. Total capital investment in 2025 was €16.6 billion. This will be increased to an allocation of €19.1 billion for 2026, as outlined in the Estimates published in December. It represents the highest annual spend on capital investment in this country. Capital expenditure has increased by almost €9.5 billion or 97% over the period 2021 to 2026. This increased investment has seen its share rise from 11% of overall current and capital expenditure in 2021 to 16% in 2026. Following the publication of the review last July, Departments began to develop their sectoral investment plans to provide specific details on projects they intend to deliver and progress between 2026 and 2030. These plans have provided the construction and built environment sector with a clear and structured pipeline of projects to be delivered over the next five years. I was pleased to participate in the launch of the education sectoral investment plan earlier today with the Minister, Deputy Naughton, which will provide hundreds of new buildings and school extensions, with a particular emphasis on special education over the next two years. By outlining the scale, scope, and timing of upcoming infrastructure projects, the sectoral plans provide greater certainty for industry to be able to plan and scale capacity through investment in hiring, technology and innovation to deliver on the NDP. Considering sectoral needs and ministerial decisions, these plans reflect Government priorities, including the national planning framework commitment to balanced regional development. The plans published to date include planned investment and projects, including a range of projects across transport, health, education, justice and utility services. These sectoral plans are available online and provide further detail on a sectoral basis. The core functions of my Department are expenditure management and reform and this dual remit underpins the Government’s approach to accelerating and expanding our delivery of infrastructure to maximise the impact for Ireland. The investment under the NDP is to ensure that we are equipped for the future and that we are making lasting sustainable change to the country. Record levels of expenditure provide us with a generational opportunity to transform our built environment and deliver the homes needed for our growing and changing demographics. However, to maximise this investment, reform is equally important. We are clear we cannot properly tackle infrastructure deficits through increased investment alone. Unprecedented funding allocations must be matched with unprecedented reform to deliver value for money and the projects required. In April 2025, I established the infrastructure division in my Department and convened the accelerating infrastructure task force with a single mandate, that is, to identify the key barriers to infrastructure delivery and develop a comprehensive action plan to overcome them. The accelerating infrastructure task force brought together experts and stakeholders from across the infrastructure delivery system with the aim of tackling the most significant barriers to infrastructure delivery. I chaired this task force, which met monthly, and ensured that the work and recommendations of the group were evidence based, practical, targeted and, crucially, capable of delivering measurable improvements in infrastructure timelines and outcomes. The first report of the task force identified 12 barriers to infrastructure delivery in key areas, namely: the regulatory environment in particularly complex, overlapping consenting processes for submission and review and risk aversion in the system; the planning and legal systems, in particular judicial reviews, causing uncertainty and delay; and internal systems across the public and civil service, noting fragmented governance, procurement challenges and capacity constraints. The final report was published in December last year and focused on how we address these issues. It highlighted five key objective: to accelerate delivery of critical infrastructure, particularly in the areas of electricity, water and transport; to accelerate the delivery of all infrastructure by simplifying, streamlining and rebalancing the regulatory and consenting processes for infrastructure in general; to reduce delays caused by judicial reviews, regulatory complexity and fragmented approvals; to enhance co-ordination across Government, utilities and local authorities; and to build public and political support for infrastructure projects. The report also sets out 30 targeted actions across four pillars to deliver on these objectives. Each of the actions outlined is explicitly linked to the barriers identified in July and how they interact with each other. These actions are not stand alone, and the total impact will be greater than the sum of the individual actions. There needs to be a complete mindset shift across our public services to ensure delivery is prioritised. This means a much greater risk appetite, much better regulatory balance and a decision-making culture which ensures that the public and national interest come first. This is not a report of recommendations. The report is a statement of intent, and the Government is committed to implementing this action plan in full and on time. This is evident with clear deadlines for implementation included - which are concentrated, and the majority of which are in 2026 - clear responsibility for each action and defined measures of success and accountability. The Government is focused on making the step change necessary to have real impact on our infrastructure delivery. The action plan spans four pillars. First, there is legal reform. This is designed to tackle excessive complexity in the regulatory and infrastructure development environment at the source. These legal reforms are specific and carefully considered to improve infrastructure delivery without compromising on environmental standards, individual rights or good governance. These reforms will work within the bounds of existing EU legislation to reduce disproportionate delays in the infrastructure development process and will create legal frameworks for critical and emergency infrastructure, ensuring that projects of high strategic importance or that are urgently needed can be prioritised by all State bodies and delivered quickly. The key actions under this pillar include: several measures to reform the judicial review process; enacting a critical infrastructure Bill; giving statutory designation for critical projects, thereby allowing them to be expedited through processes; and bringing forward emergency powers legislation to enable accelerated delivery in urgent situations consistent with EU law. The second pillar is regulatory reform. Our current regulatory landscape is fragmented and overly complex. It is composed of numerous agencies, consents, assessments and licences. However, the system has developed over decades and each of these processes may serve an important function. This reform pillar is not just about removing regulation or lowering standards, and accelerating infrastructure delivery must not come at the cost of good governance or environmental standards. We will focus on simplifying and standardising processes in order that approvals run in parallel, where possible, with clearly stated expectations and statutory timelines for decisions. This goal is to align procedures across agencies, remove duplication and create processes that have predictable timelines and outcomes and that ultimately strike a better balance in the context of regulatory requirements. Some of the key actions under this pillar include the establishment of a regulatory simplification unit to proactively identify opportunities to simplify, create parallel systems and streamline regulatory processes. The legislation underpinning regulatory processes will also be rationalised. We will publish national planning statements to create legally binding guidance for planning authorities. This will create consistency, transparency and accountability in decision-making on infrastructure projects. We will change how we approach infrastructure in the context of EU law. The third pillar is focused on reform of co-ordination and delivery. In order to deliver on the commitments in the national development plan and sectoral investment plans, Ireland must be able to deliver infrastructure at scale, year after year. The funding has been committed and delivery is now a real a priority. This can only be achieved with strong, whole-of-government co-ordination and a strong construction sector. The Government has already made significant efforts to orient itself towards infrastructure co-ordination and delivery through the funding allocations and reform plan. The infrastructure division will take on a proactive oversight and monitoring role for this plan. This role will allow my Department to take early action where barriers arise in the delivery of critical infrastructure programmes. These commitments to strengthening the construction sector are supported by other actions in the plan. Shortened delivery timelines, reduced regulatory complexity and a reliable project pipeline will all enable the construction sector to build and maintain the workforce and expertise needed to deliver on Ireland’s ambitious capital plans. Some of the key actions under this pillar include the prioritisation of Government investment in capital, which has already been achieved through the recent national development plan review and continues to be actioned with the publication of sectoral investment plans for critical infrastructure sectors. My Department will take on an expanded infrastructure co-ordination role. The Department will be proactive and will ensure that the action plan is implemented, its effectiveness measured and issues identified and resolved early. We have created a joint utilities and transport clearing house to co-ordinate road openings, diversions and standards. We will increase construction sector capacity through streamlined permits and visas, expanded training and greater use of modern methods of construction and digitalisation and procurement reform through sharing expertise through the National Development Finance Agency, standardising procurement processes and enabling the use of international forms of contract where appropriate. These actions will create greater co-operation between State bodies, ensuring that all bodies are aligned with Government strategies to deliver critical infrastructure. The fourth pillar of the report focuses on public acceptance and civic engagement. Infrastructure must earn societal support. We will accelerate infrastructure delivery by reducing land access delays and building public trust and accountability. We will also improve public engagement processes to communicate the real-world value of infrastructure and the improvements it brings to the quality of life of ordinary people. All these actions mean we are fundamentally reforming how we deliver high quality infrastructure in our country. We are not simply adjusting one lever; we are changing the system entirely, reforming our legal and regulatory processes, how we co-ordinate and deliver across the public service and how we engage with the public, because only a whole-of-government effort will convert record investment into outcomes at pace. Regulation has its place, but it needs to be balanced against delivery. We do not have that balance currently. Our regulatory regime is fragmented, often sequential and overly conservative in its application of EU law, creating delay and uncertainty. Even with increased resourcing, major wastewater plants still face consenting cycles measured in years. Ireland’s renewables projects have among the slowest development timelines in the EU. This carries a real cost, namely higher energy prices and higher emissions, and the threat of judicial review that drives further risk aversion. We will fix it by simplifying legislation, standardising processes, aligning statutory timelines and driving proportionality and parallel processing across consents in order protection of people and nature will be delivered with efficiency, not delay. Reforming regulation alone is not enough, however. We must reform how Government and the public service work. That means clear risk appetite statements approved by the Government in order that sponsors can commence well-scoped early works, run safe, concurrent steps and forward order critical components where the public benefit justifies it. This is a commitment and a clear programme of action. We will remove duplication, confront risk aversion and build a delivery-first culture while safeguarding the environment and access to justice. The expected combined impact of all the actions in this plan will be faster approvals and reduced litigation, significantly shorter delivery timelines, improved co-ordination and resource allocation, greater public trust and reduced opposition, and ultimately, increased infrastructure output to support our housing, climate and economic goals. Since it came to office, the Government has taken clear strides to move at pace to address Ireland’s infrastructural needs and secure our future, economically and socially. My Department has taken clear ownership of driving delivery and embodying the strategic leadership that is required for this critical step change for Ireland. Senior officials have been appointed, a newly composed infrastructure division has been confirmed and timelines and responsibilities for actions and sub-measures have been committed and agreed to. The regulatory reform team has been appointed and has commenced its first stage of assessments. Senior managers have been deployed to expand the team for construction sector capacity and procurement and work on external assurance reports to support the major projects advisory group has commenced. Infrastructure delivery and monitoring structures are bedding in, including strategic-level monitoring of implementation, functions for reporting to Government, risk appetite reviews and public-facing communications and project tracking and delivery. The task force will continue to meet regularly to support the delivery of this plan. My Department has demonstrably committed to driving delivery of these 30 actions. The decisions we have already taken and are implementing show that we are moving at pace. I am confident that we will deliver the respective actions across this year. This programme of reform, coupled with the expenditure committed to, paves the way for Ireland's continued economic development, achieving climate targets, unlocking housing delivery, creating opportunities across Ireland, enhancing our competitiveness as a place to invest in and to do business and building abundance in our economy and society such that our people and communities will benefit from high-quality services that drive improved living standards. I thank my fellow Government colleagues and Members from right across the House who are engaging positively and constructively on this journey to transform infrastructure delivery in our country. We have a generational opportunity to shape Ireland's future. Now is the time to get infrastructure delivery right by reforming the system outside of us and the culture within. The people of Ireland deserve no less and this Government will deliver it.

Once again, the Government is talking about reports and plans while treading water when it comes to developing infrastructure. It is a case of more glossy documents, little in the way of targets and timelines and more false dawns. People roll their eyes because what communities need is delivery as opposed to brochures and concrete progress rather than press launches. In Waterford, the gaps are obvious and long-standing. Deputy Cullinane and I have been raising them consistently. The safety upgrades to the N25 and the N72 are long overdue. Upgrades to the N24 linking Waterford to the mid-west and the west have been talked about for decades but still drift, with no funding or prospect of funding. The Waterford to Rosslare rail line has been dropped entirely from the national rail strategy. Waterford Airport was shamefully denied Government support. South East Technological University receives the lowest level of capital investment of any technological university. Dunmore East fisheries harbour waits while opportunities are lost. Even basic maintenance of regional and local roads is falling behind. Schools, childcare facilities and naonraí are left without sufficient capital funding and are falling far below projected population growth and actual population demand. The failure in this regard has consequences for the real communities, families and people I represent. It is holding back housing in our towns and villages and choking off development where services simply cannot cope. Tá sé fíor go háirithe sna ceantair Ghaeltachta. Gan bhonneagar ceart, ní féidir tithíocht a thógáil nó pobal a choinneáil beo. Tá an easpa infheistíochta seo ag cur isteach ar an saol laethúil agus ar an teanga féin. Tá sé ag cur isteach ar thodhchaí na Gaeltachta. Water infrastructure in Waterford is in crisis daily. Outages, low pressure, boil water notices and do not consume notices have become routine. Kilmeaden and Ballyduff are currently without water, Touraneena is left without an adequate supply and crumbling infrastructure is holding back home building in Lismore and creating uncertainty for businesses, schools, childcare facilities and care homes there. We need to see a dedicated fund to deal with legacy failures regarding water and wastewater. Estates built with inadequate supply or sewage capacity must be upgraded and taken in charge. Woodlands estate in Portlaw is one example. Almost 90 homes on a group water scheme are facing doubled annual fees this week and instability and constant uncertainty when it comes to their water supply. The Government needs to fix the basics before launching more glossy plans and congratulating itself. Delivery is what people need and not another brochure, report and round of backslapping

The Government's plans are an admission of a profound failure on the part of successive Governments that consistently failed to co-ordinate and deliver. In County Meath, the Government's legacy is one of broken promises. We have unaffordable housing without adequate water and wastewater infrastructure in Dunboyne, Duleek, Kells and elsewhere. Communities in Ashbourne, Ratoath, Kells and elsewhere are without working public transport. We have a county waiting decades for Navan rail and families priced off an electricity grid prioritised for data centres. We have estates built without the playgrounds, parks or community centres that make a house a home. The Government's proposed solution to this self-made crisis is to restrict the public's right to planning justice and silence the very communities it has failed. This is not reform; it is an attempt to avoid accountability. The co-ordination and delivery reform in this plan is meaningless unless it legally binds the delivery of pipes, rail and community facilities to the completion of new homes. It requires a date-certain funded commitment for Navan rail. Without that, it is just more empty words. We will oppose any erosion of democratic rights. Real acceleration requires competence as opposed to the curtailment of community voices. The Minister should show us the binding sequenced plans then we might believe him.

The deep frustration in my county in terms of key infrastructure projects concerns just how long they take. I want to talk about the Letterkenny relief road. Letterkenny is the beating heart of Donegal in terms of inward investment. It has multinational companies. Our university is there, along with our public services and our hospital. A huge volume of traffic goes through the town all the time. It is crucial to the county. Fifteen years ago, there was a business proposal from Donegal County Council for a Letterkenny relief road known locally as the Bonagee link. It was cast aside during the downturn in about 2010 or 2011. All these years later, there is no digger on the site. The Minister has been to the town and spoken in it. He was in it recently. It is a nightmare. It is a real challenge not just for the local communities that have to deal with every day but also for the visitors and the people who work there or take their loved ones to hospital there. The planning processes in this country are totally exasperating, as is the lack of urgency within Departments and their failure to talk to each other and communicate properly . An article by John Collison in The Irish Times captured the imagination of a lot of people. He described a Government that is operating at arm's length. There are all these different agencies and bodies and nothing can get done with substance. I offer up the Letterkenny relief road and the logjam and nightmare that people are experiencing in that town as an example of all that is wrong with Government policy and of the need for change and to get a strong grip on activities of the various agencies and bodies involved.

I will give the Minister an example of how out of touch the Government is. He stated that €102.4 billion is being allocated over the five-year period from 2026 to 2030. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah. At the same time, I am being contacted by people in Carrowteige who are being told that they will have to pay €2,359 by Friday or they will not get clean water. How can we be spending billions when we have people in rural Ireland being asked to pay that amount by Friday? We are talking about pensioners who are absolutely distraught and people who are already in poverty because of the cost of living. I am asking the Minister, once and for all, to ensure that there is fairness for people in rural Ireland. When we talk about infrastructure, we are not just talking about water and the lack of clean water. It also involves our regional and local roads. I have spoken to the Minister many times about roads he knows well such as the R312, which is the regional road connecting Castlebar to Erris. This is the regional road on which Stephen Lavelle has had to travel in an ambulance with other people who are ill and or, on occasion, dying. This is a road that is not fit to put a car on never mind an ambulance, and the Minister tells us that €102.4 billion is being spent and that we should be jumping up and down and happy about it. I am sorry but there is an absolute disconnect between this Government and what is happening in rural Ireland in terms of infrastructure.

There have been plans in recent years to do with the national development plan, the national spatial strategy and so on. What a lot of them have in common is the prediction that Cork is likely to be fastest growing urban area in the State over the course of the next 15 to 20 years. For that to happen and for Cork to reach its fullest potential, we know that the infrastructure is needed. More than that, we know that it cannot simply be putting more cars on the road. Public transport is going to be crucially important in Cork. What Cork needs is more of the key personnel on the ground. It is crucially important that we have these national organisations but we need TII, NTA and Irish Rail people on the ground all the time from a national delivery point of view. One of the major public transport projects we are looking is the Cork Luas. The timelines are not anywhere near ambitious enough. It would be a huge mistake to look at only one route at the outset because it is very likely that there will be a need for a north-south line linking up heavily trafficked and heavily populated areas, such as Carrigaline and Douglas, through the city centre and through to parts of the northside. If it is not mapped out now and the process begun - we know it will not happen overnight - then it will be in 20 years. In relation to BusConnects, which is another important part in ensuring that public transport for Cork is fit for the 21st century, there is a legislative piece to this. Some of it is capital and some of it is engineering but there is a legislative piece. At the minute, it is not possible to remotely enforce traffic infringements, that is, we are going to have these bus gates that prevent people going back and forth from either side of them to facilitate bus prioritisation and to assist the bus in being the fastest vehicle. Unfortunately, unless we have digital remote enforcement of that, it will not work. People are going to go through the bus gates and it will snare up traffic. Legislation is needed to do this. That is something that would be cheap, easy and quick to do but this Government needs to do it to ensure that BusConnects can succeed.

The Government’s infrastructure plan is devoid of action with no new ambition but rather it slightly alters existing systems and has little in the way of new ideas. The State has crumbling infrastructure, a housing crisis compounded by the failures of successive housing Ministers and a planning system that is not fit for purpose. In the mid-west, many infrastructure projects have been glacially slow to deliver. In Limerick, we have the Coonagh-Knockalisheen road. It took over many years before work commenced on this project. The Minister of the day was determined to stop this road and without the intervention of the people of Moyross and others, it would not have been constructed. Once finally constructed and completed, it will serve as an important artery that will unlock economic, employment and educational opportunities in the area. Functioning infrastructure is crucial to economic development and to a better quality of life. The plan notes that the transport infrastructure deficit gives rise to hours lost to congestion. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Mackey roundabout on the outskirts of Limerick. The northern distributor road is therefore crucial to the development of Limerick city. The construction of the northern distributor road would remove vast amounts of traffic from the city and would provide a link from the residential areas on the northside of the city to the University of Limerick and its surrounding industrial estates. It would also address the issues at the Mackey roundabout, which is a crucial connection point for those looking to access the M7 and for those coming off the M7 and going to work in the University of Limerick and adjacent industrial estates. On weekday mornings and evenings, it is gridlocked with motorists who, in frustration, sometimes take risks and put their lives in danger as they look to exit the roundabout. You can see cars backed up trying to exit the M7 at the Mackey Roundabout and in other areas in Ballysimon as well. The northern distributor road would address most of these issues. On bus infrastructure, the Condell road in Limerick is a road that was built in Limerick city. It is a fine piece of road and has had a bus lane for a huge number of years. When I was on Limerick City Council, a bus lane was delivered, yet there is no bus service. You would struggle to find nonsense like this anywhere else in the world where you have a road with a bus lane but no bus. In past number of years, hundreds of houses have been built in the area, many of them social and affordable houses, but there is no bus stop. A simple solution would to be reroute an existing bus service to service the road instead of having to wait for BusConnects which could be years. We now have many people there in hundreds of home without cars and no accessible public transport. This needs to be sorted.

I would like to bring up the very important and very relevant infrastructure deficit in my town of Enniscorthy. Enniscorthy has borne 16 floods since the year 2000. Homes and businesses have been destroyed by water and raw sewage. Time and again, the people of Enniscorthy have picked up the pieces. It is heartbreaking to watch families being forced out of their homes and small businesses the same by something that can be fixed and remedied. The latest flooding is one of the worst I have seen in years. Over 35 homes and 50 businesses, including two main hotels, have been affected by this force of nature. Most, if not all, cannot get insurance due to the frequency of the flooding. Some premises are reporting damages up to €70,000 or €80,000 while others are talking about closing for good. The flood relief scheme for the Slaney was first put forward over 20 years ago and is still unresolved. The latest flood relief scheme was rejected as recently as 2022 on the grounds of a freshwater pearl mussel. For God’s sake, that is little comfort or consolation to the people without a home today or facing enormous refurbishment bills or to the workers who will not get paid or to the businesses who might never open again. People in Enniscorthy are hurt and totally frustrated. This situation is soul-destroying. Businesses have been ruined and families are trying to restore their homes. I call on the Minister to act now to speed up the process of the new planning application. I also call on him to immediately extend the date of the emergency response payment scheme beyond the closing date of 4 February, simply because it will take a least a couple of days before anyone can return to their homes or sort out their belongings, including businesses. I again ask the Minister to get the ball rolling and to immediately call in the Office of Public Works, OPW, Government Departments and Wexford County Council and to sort this out once and for all and to get the planning application safely across the line.

Every week we come into this Chamber and we discuss infrastructure. It might always be the title of the debate but Ireland's infrastructural deficit lies behind so many of the problems we discus every day. Whether we are talking about flooding, commuter chaos or housing, what is really under discussion is the consistent failure of the Government to build and sustain the infrastructure that Ireland needs. The International Monetary Fund, IMF, has said that we are lagging 32% behind our peers when it comes to infrastructure. This is the key reason Ireland, a rich country, can feel poor for too many people. The transport links, housing, hospitals and utilities befitting a rich country are just not there. Over the past decade, this Government has managed to waste a boom. While it was sitting our record tax receipts, it allowed our infrastructure gap to widen and widen. The plan announced before Christmas was at least an effort to take the issue seriously. It was a roll of the dice by the Government to finally tackle the generational problems that it, to a large part, has created for itself. There are certainly some welcome measures within the plan but these are things that any government worth its salt should have already been doing, so, in many respects, this plan amounts to an admission of failure. The streamlining of approvals for critical infrastructure projects is very welcome, so is the greater co-ordination to be demanded across the public service on infrastructure delivery. A duty for State bodies to co-operate in making land available and accessible for critical infrastructure, something that would seem so blindingly obvious to anyone else and should already be happening, is long overdue and we really do welcome that. The commitment to clear timelines is positive and the Government should further commit to non-negotiable delivery dates for the departmental implementation plans described in this document. That would be an indication of confidence from the Government in its own plan. Accountability will be key to the success of this report and we welcome the clear lines of responsibility for Ministers and senior civil servants in the document. The Labour Party and the public will be holding the Minister's own performance against this plan to account. I do, however, have concerns about the Government's over-zealous focus on judicial reviews, JRs. Legal reforms may be a necessary part of a comprehensive process like this but the Government seems to view limits to judicial reviews as a panacea, which will solve all of our problems. It will not. We should be clear that there is no silver bullet here. The Government must tread very carefully. Access to effective justice underpins our whole democracy. Judicial reviews should not be treated as a bogey man as they have been by this Government. The Law Society noted recently that the number of JRs decreased by 25% in 2025, so we must question the evidential basis for the Government's approach here. Not only does the Government's attitude risk undermining effective access to justice and crucial environmental laws, it could also put the whole mission at risk by taking its eye off the ball. What we need is investment and resourcing of our planning bodies and courts as this is where the real delays and backlogs lie. It is little more than performative to attack those who simply seek to ensure that our laws are being complied with. We should also be honest that these judicial reforms will likely themselves be subject to legal challenge, including in the European courts. All of us in Ireland need this plan to work. The Government needs this plan to work too, and we will be holding Ministers to account in the years to come to make sure the tide finally turns on our delivery of crucial infrastructure.

Infrastructure is absolutely vital. We can talk about the building of homes, which is absolutely necessary, but as we build homes, we must build infrastructure. As the Minister knows, I was born and bred in Mallow. For over 30 years now, the people of Mallow have been talking about a relief road to relieve traffic congestion in the town. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, despite promise after promise, have failed to deliver for the people of Mallow. In every single announcement that the 34th Government has made in the Dáil, Mallow has been completely left behind. It is no coincidence that there is no Government TD representing the people of Mallow. The Government, in announcement after announcement, makes no specific mention of the Mallow relief road. We are crying out for funding, as is Cork County Council, yet there is no commitment to it. There has been no commitment on the Mallow–Dungarvan greenway either. A spokesperson I spoke to in Cork County Council told me that project is dead in the water because the Government does not care about it. On the matter of the Cork–Limerick motorway, there is no other European country in which the second and third largest cities are not connected by a motorway. That there is no connection between Cork and Limerick is unbelievable. I recognise that work has been done on the Cork commuter rail line, but it is simply not enough. The people of Mallow are sick and tired of waiting for delivery on projects of this Fianna Fáil–Fine Gael Government. I do not blame them. For decades now, promise after promise has been made around election time, but with no delivery. As Minister for public expenditure and infrastructure, Deputy Chambers should go back to his Department officials and speak to the Minister for Transport, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, about the development and construction of the Mallow relief road, the single biggest infrastructure project in my hometown and in my constituency, Cork North-Central.

I welcome the chance to speak on the Government infrastructure plan. I want to outline a number of issues that have arisen in my home county, Kildare. Last Monday, councillors in Kildare County Council discussed a variation of the current Kildare county development plan to cater for an additional 50,000 people in the county over the coming years. As everybody in this House knows, Kildare is a very welcoming county and its infrastructure has played its part in population growth; however, the problem that homeowners and potential homeowners raise with me is the already oversubscribed demand on the current infrastructure in the county. Over recent weeks, I have repeatedly raised in this House how the M7 and N7 become car parks each morning for those commuting to Dublin. My party and I welcome every euro spent on public transport, but even with the news the Minister is announcing today, the relevant projects are years away. The plan itself is very light on delivery dates, yet commuters and people who must attend hospital appointments are stuck in what is a car park every day. We mentioned several solutions in a Private Members’ motion last week, but the Government voted against that motion. I ask the Government once again to consider these short-term measures. In my hometown, Athy, the first train each morning is at 6.40 a.m. Doctors, nurses and other workers cannot get to Dublin for work starting at 8 a.m. This is simply not good enough. I question the Government’s language around the DART+ South West project, which could improve the lives of commuters in County Kildare. We are not sure about the status of the plan or whether it depends on what will happen with trains on other lines in other projects. As the Minister well knows, the DART+ project has full planning permission. I welcome today’s announcement, mentioned in the Minister’s speech, of a number of school projects in Kildare South that will make a difference, but given the population of Kildare already, some of the schools will already be full and demand will remain. I again appeal to the Government to recognise the need for another special school in Kildare South and the largest possible number of special classes to assist the more than 50 schools and the already stressed families who contact me every day seeking places for their loved ones. Towns like Kildare, Newbridge and Kilcullen will now see more welcome new housing estates, but infrastructure has simply not kept pace. The demand for GPs is a huge issue. The out-of-hours service KDOC needs to be extended to Kildare South. The lack of social infrastructure is of great concern to many in Kildare South. There are no playing pitches and there is a lack of swimming pools and playgrounds. The Minister, along with the rest of the Government, will be judged on delivery, and delivery alone.

I want to express my dismay over the pausing of the DART+ project. It is a retrograde step for communities in the Minister’s constituency, mine and the greater Dublin area. I want to talk about health infrastructure. The €9.25 billion allocation is simply not adequate when one considers the digitalisation programme, the National Maternity Hospital and the beds that need to be delivered. The Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, has spoken about the need to do something very real in Limerick, yet the money is not available. Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael manifestos committed to delivering between 4,000 and 5,000 hospital beds over the lifetime of this Government, or 1,000 per year, yet we see that just 124 acute beds were delivered up to September last year. The service plan for this year commits to 134 net new beds. That is a joke. The reality, having regard to occupancy, is that conditions in many of our hospitals are very unsafe. Last year, 1,415 beds were lost because of delayed transfers of care. There is a lack of urgency from the Government. We need to ensure a more appropriate amount of money is in place for the health system.

Many of us have spoken here many times about infrastructural deficits. In this regard, unfortunately, we see chickens coming home to roost across the State at times. I will speak about County Louth, particularly Dundalk. While we did have heavy rains, undoubtedly, we are impacted in some parts of Dundalk owing to infrastructure, including for wastewater treatment, that is not up to scratch. We are dealing with joint infrastructure, which means both sewerage and storm water infrastructure. We do not have enough capacity, which meant that the likes of Bay Estate, Greenacres, Avondale and Cluan Enda, and basically anywhere in the surrounds of Red Barns Road and St. Alphonsus Road, which were also blocked, had huge issues. We hope we will not have serious rain in the near future. Not only do we need CFRAM action taken in this regard and short-term mitigation given the possibility of storms in the future, but we also need to upgrade the wastewater infrastructure. Waiting until 2033 is not going to do it. We were very lucky just over two years ago, and we are just about lucky enough at the minute, but that is not good enough for an awful lot of people.

I welcome the Government’s work to escalate infrastructure delivery. Ireland is experiencing strong population growth, a rise in economic activity and increasing demand for public services. These are positive developments but they place pressure on our transport, utilities and regional infrastructure. Therefore, we must ensure essential projects are delivered efficiently. I welcome the infrastructure plan introduced by the Minister, which will strengthen the planning process, improve procurement and support better co-ordination between agencies. The most important part is to have all the agencies working together. We want to reduce delays, increase certainty and allow vital projects to progress in a more streamlined way. Balanced regional development is essential. In my area, Carlow–Kilkenny, towns and villages must have adequate wastewater and utility capacity to support housing and growth locally. Last week, I highlighted here that towns such as Grange and Ardattin in County Carlow are still waiting on necessary wastewater infrastructure. Planning and funding decisions must be aligned so projects can move forward without delay. Transport infrastructure is also important. Investment in our roads, public transport and active travel improves journey times. We have done a lot on that but, as the Minister always says, safety and quality of life are a priority for us. We have really done a lot on that too but safety and quality of life, as the Minister always says, is a priority for us. I want to highlight the Carlow southern relief road, which is a project in the national development plan. It will remove through traffic from the town centre, reduce congestion, improve public transport and make travel safer for pedestrians and cyclists. I note the consultants are in place ahead of the further public engagement and I look forward to reviewing the route option and the project continuing as it progresses. I know I am always on to the Minister about this one. I also want to mention the N80. Since Brexit, it has become a major national route, carrying more than 4.2 million vehicles annually, including a significant volume of heavy goods traffic. However, it is no longer fit for purpose and if you look at the Carlow part of that, it saw 27 accidents last year alone, including several fatalities over recent years. We need to upgrade the N80 and to look at it as a motorway, creating a link from Rosslare to the M7 at Portlaoise. This would strengthen regional connectivity, improve safety and support Ireland's role as an EU gateway. Deputy McGuinness and I were in Kilkenny last week and we spoke with the chief executive there. These were projects that came up too. It was mentioned that the N24 Waterford to Cahir and N25 Waterford to Glenmore schemes were in the pipeline, both of which are at different stages. All of this infrastructure is vital. I know the Minister is committed to this and I thank him for all his work. These are all urgently needed.

I welcome the proposals that will lead to the acceleration of infrastructure but what I want to talk about today are the people I represent in Galway East and the lives they live. Everyone who lives in Galway East and who commutes into Galway city faces the same issue of huge traffic. I believe - and the national development plan, NDP, backs this up, as it is funded - that there are three or four key solutions that are outlined in the NDP, are now funded and need to be delivered. We need to build the Galway ring road. That has to happen in the lifetime of this Government. It has to get approval from An Coimisiún Pleanála and it has to drive on. Let it not get stopped and leave people in their cars for years. Second, we have to implement and prioritise the buses through BusConnects because if you have a strong and solid bus service, people can rely on that, use it and it will be a cost saver for them. It will also aid the further reduction of traffic in Galway city. Third, we have to double-track the line from Galway city to Athenry and build the western rail corridor. The carriages that are on order also have to be delivered and we, as a Government, have to show leadership on that in getting them as soon as possible. This is a three-pronged approach through road infrastructure, bus services and rail. If those three things were delivered over the next five years, that would transform the quality of the lives of people living in Galway East right now. For the thousands of people commuting into Galway city every day, those few changes, which are funded under the national development plan and are in the planning process or already have plans, need to be delivered. We are at that stage where we have an opportunity to deliver. The funding is there and this Government needs to do it because the people will be so grateful to us if we can do these few things and get them right. People ultimately want freedom in their lives and the reality is that when they are trapped in their cars in traffic, waiting for a bus that does not arrive or squished in on the trains, we need to make their lives that bit better.

I wish to raise a number of issues in Kerry that I have raised previously in this Chamber, starting with the road realignment and footpath out from Laune bridge in Killorglin out as far as the Fexco research, development and innovation, RDI, hub at Anglont on the Killorglin-Killarney road. This campaign by the residents is going on for at least 40 years now. It was going on in my father's time. Residents there, Kerry County Council officials and all politicians in Kerry are frustrated beyond belief that this is taking so long. I ask that it be prioritised as soon as possible and that we get on the ladder of funding this year, if at all possible. I wish to mention the Cahersiveen town road and footpaths project. That, too, is a chronic situation for the business community, the community at large and indeed visitors to the area. Cahersiveen is probably the longest town on the Ring of Kerry or on any national route in Ireland. The street is completely lopsided. There have been accidents not alone with pedestrians but also vehicles. That is in urgent need of funding. The Killarney bypass has been raised here on a number of occasions and the town itself is choked with traffic on a daily basis. A bypass is urgently needed. Funding has been provided this year and last year to kickstart the project. I ask that it be expedited. Killorglin town has a similar story in that the town is also choked on a daily basis, especially in morning and evening time when the schools open and close. For traffic coming through, Killorglin is the gateway to the Iveragh Peninsula. I also wish to mention the Tralee to Camp to Dingle road, the N86. The Ring of Kerry itself is 70% substandard. It is officials who are saying that, not just me. The last point I want to make is around the development levies in the context of waterworks. The bills are astronomical and prohibitive to development as well. Irish Water needs to look at those.

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. This time last week, I was in Finland with the Oireachtas education committee. We were there to talk about all things educational but naturally the conversation drifted. We got chatting about their elections and our elections. We finally asked the deputy mayor of Helsinki - we had drifted way off topic - if there were any public projects in his city delayed or overspent on in the past five or six years. He turned to his advisers on the left and right, spoke in a language none of us understood, and he eventually answered us and said "No". There were not. I would love to get to the point in five or six years' time where we are giving similar messages here. Things have become overly convoluted and I commend the Minister because he has started unravelling that knot of red tape. It looks good but now we have the litmus test of how quickly this can all happen. I note the GPO and the National Concert Hall have been picked as two test projects to see how quickly things can be delivered and that is fine. They are both fabulous projects and both mean a lot as they are symbolic to Ireland but, day to day, I would like to see things like hospitals more fast-tracked. University Hospital Limerick needs to be a test bed. We have a plan and pathway forward to develop that, hopefully having a new accident and emergency department in the mid-west region. That should be a test bed project. The other project I wish to mention is the Limerick northern distributor road. Even though it is a Limerick project, it straddles Clare and Limerick. Phase 1 of that is pretty much complete and is going to open in a matter of weeks but phase 2 is just entirely in the doldrums. As I mentioned to him before, the Minister might remember from our childhood that cartoon with Road Runner, where Wile E. Coyote would chase Road Runner out of town. There was always that road at the edge of town where everything just dropped off; there was a cliff edge. That is what the Limerick northern distributor road will look like when its first phase is completed this year. It just ends at a roundabout in my home village of Meelick. It goes no place else, so I would like to see that activated. About three years ago, the Minister sat in a car in Ennis and drove some of the exits from and entrances to the motorway. He met with a woman who lost her husband in a very tragic accident. I am glad to say that motorway access is now being fixed, which is part of this. That is largely due to the Minister's intervention that day. He stepped out of the ministerial car and went in her car. We drove through it and he got to see it first hand. That is now happening and it is hugely appreciated.

Infrastructure development is really important and is obviously important for every city, county and constituency, so I wish to raise infrastructure development for Waterford city and county and the wider south east. The North Quays development has received significant Government funding so I want to start by acknowledging that. However, I also have to say to the Minister that, per capita, the south east and Waterford are not getting their fair share and have not been getting their fair share of capital funding for a long number of years. Even over the past year, I have raised so many different issues. I will start with the N24 Waterford to Limerick road. What is really disheartening about that project is it is not a great road. I know a lot of people who use it every day. It is very dangerous and needs to be upgraded. The preferred route is in place. A lot of work was done and then, lo and behold, the Government simply stopped the funding and for the past two years, no funding has gone to that project. The local authorities have been screaming at the Government to provide the funding because of road safety issues and because it is an economic corridor between Waterford and the south east. It is the same with the N25, the Waterford to Cork road. Again, it has not received any funding. I was blue in the face in this Chamber raising the need for State investment in Waterford Airport. The Government made us jump over hurdles and jump through hoops. It delayed and delayed, and it got to the point that a venture between a private consortium, the three local authorities in the region and the State collapsed. A private investor had to come in from outside the country, by the way, to put money on the table to build a runway extension that this Government simply failed to do. We also have the case of the South East Technological University, SETU, which has had to wait years for an engineering block. We are now told funding will come for a One Health building and a pharmacy building in Waterford, but that will take years. Appraisals and business cases have been done and they are sent up to the Department. All of that gets put through all sorts of processes and there is no clarity as to when that funding will be made available. I have also been raising issues around Waterford Port and the need to invest in it. It has given good, ambitious plans for offshore renewable energy to the Government but funding has not been made available. I also raise with the Minister an important project I have worked with and also visited a number of times in recent years. Naíonra Philib Barún is home to over 20 young children in Tramore in County Waterford. It does not have a proper building and is housed in a prefab. It is a very small, tight space. It needs capital funding for a new project but because the students are in early childhood care and education, ECCE, they fall through all the cracks. Nobody seems to want to fund it. Unfortunately, these children are being taught and having their preschool in this unsuitable prefab. The south east is not getting its fair share. I have given the Minister a list of projects, for which I and others have been campaigning and looking for Government funding, and what we have got is a stone wall of resistance.

I will make some general points on infrastructure but I want to say at the outset that the Government decision on pausing DART+ South West, which is not in my constituency and is not an issue for most people in my constituency, is incredibly regressive. The project should be going ahead straight away. It is ready to go in terms of planning. The only delay has been caused by the Government. It is in an area where there has been a huge amount of housing development over the last few years and there is a lot more development to come. DART+ South West is critically needed. I appeal to the Government, as the only entity holding this project up, to go ahead with it. There could not be a more important project to serve that part of south-west Dublin, Kildare and adjoining areas. It is needed. Overall, our infrastructure is in a critical situation. Our capital stock is about 30% behind comparable European countries due to decades of under-investment in infrastructure. At the same time, this Government has never had so many resources at its disposal. We recently had the largest budget ever passed. There is a real onus to close that infrastructure gap as quickly as possible. This is affecting people’s quality of life, their health and well-being and they time they have with their families. In addition, it is having huge implications for our economic development. We cannot take for granted continued economic progress if there is continued lack of under-investment in critical infrastructure. That really does need to be addressed. We are in an era where many pensioners are afraid to turn on their heating, yet in 2024, for example, €450 million of renewable wind energy was wasted because of under-investment in our grid and our grid’s inability to take that energy due to capacity. That is an utter waste and an utter failure by previous governments to take that issue seriously. Caithfidh muid gníomhú go práinneach. Ní foláir don Rialtas éisteacht agus gníomhú. Teastaíonn ón phobal rathúlacht. Tá sé chomh simplí sin. Tá tráth an ghnímh tagtha. I welcome today’s announcement on not using external consultants and getting expertise within the State. That will be cost-efficient and will lead to increases in our capacity to deliver infrastructure. It is a welcome move and makes sense but we need more of that thinking to drive on delivery of the infrastructure we so badly need.

Infrastructure is the key to getting this country working for people. For too many people, Ireland is not working. When we look at the flooding yesterday and the traffic gridlock across the city and around the commuter belt, people are literally losing years of their lives because of the lack of investment in infrastructure. The Government, in its plans and pronouncements, can blame planning, judicial reviews, local authorities and even the population and immigrants, but the barrier is this Government not investing sufficiently in infrastructure following decade after decade of under-investment. Public transport is inadequate and rail networks are not good enough. In my constituency, the Luas Finglas line is ready to go but has been delayed. Why are shovel-ready projects being delayed? It is absolutely unacceptable. Alongside building homes, we need community infrastructure. Homes do not build communities by themselves. What builds communities are parks, playgrounds, community centres and swimming pools, the social infrastructure that has to go in. In my constituency, in Ballymun and Finglas, people are crying out for community infrastructure. In Finglas, in particular, there are derelict buildings lying idle that could be bought by the council and turned into community buildings. The council cannot do so, however, because it does not have the funding. The Government is talking about all this record funding but when we drill down, councils do not have the funding to deliver the community infrastructure that is needed. We need a step change in how we invest in our public services and public infrastructure. The Minister has a budget surplus. It should be allocated to that infrastructure.

Storm Chandra has once again exposed how vulnerable our country is in the face of extreme weather events and how poorly set up we are to adapt to climate turbulence, which is intensifying with the passage of time and which we know from science will intensify more and more into the future. There was major disruption in road transport across Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford yesterday, causing chaos and leaving thousands of commuters stranded. Professor Brian Caulfield of Trinity College spoke on "Morning Ireland" earlier about how historically poor investment in public transport exposes Ireland to much greater risk in the context of extreme weather. On an average day, regardless of weather, the N25, which is the main route from Youghal to Cork city, is heaving with traffic. Accidents are frequent and there is a punishing daily grind involved in the most basic of journeys for thousands of commuters. Members of the East Cork Rail Alliance visited Leinster House yesterday to meet TDs. They are campaigning to reinstate the rail link between Youghal and Midleton. The train link is a key solution to the traffic crisis in east Cork, along with the expediting of the Cork city Luas and the development of Local Link. It is also core to sustainable development in east Cork and the basic quality of life of commuters. We cannot just build our way out of chronic congestion with more and more multi-lane, complicated road designs that essentially amount to widening funnels of traffic, thereby worsening congestion in the long run. We need to see the aim of the East Cork Rail Alliance as one of the most sensible, pragmatic, evidence-based and important solutions to meeting the basic transport needs and regional development needs of a growing population, and we need to see political will behind it.

I welcome the opportunity to speak about infrastructure in the House and that the Government has made time for this debate. This was a huge issue during the general election. It came up at door after door in my constituency. I will start with a history lesson. Between 1831 and 1834, within three years of the idea being mooted, the world’s first commuter train line was built between Westland Row and Dún Laoghaire. Running through my constituency, it cost between €6 million and €7 million per kilometre in today’s terms. At the time, it was considered grossly expensive. Today, it is known as the DART. By comparison, the MetroLink is expected to cost between €300 million and €400 million per kilometre, making it nearly 50 times more expensive, and take much longer to complete. Despite the DART, there are real infrastructure deficits in my constituency that have gone on for far too long. A Luas extension has been postponed in Poolbeg, in an area already choked by traffic every day while construction at the Irish Glass Bottle site for a population of a small town goes ahead nearby. There is regular dumping of sewage into Dublin Bay at Sandymount, making the water unswimmable and creating a direct threat to public health every summer. In Harold's Cross, Terenure, Rathgar and Rathmines there are no Luas lines or rail lines even though, as my constituents often remind me, there were trams there 100 years ago. The latest incarnation of the national development plan mentioned developing rail in this area exactly zero times. Most recently, the flooding this week in Dartry, Milltown and Ballsbridge from the bursting of the banks of the Dodder even after most of a flood-alleviation scheme has been implemented gives me great cause for concern over our capacity to plan and act for our climate century. At the core of this dysfunction seems poor political stewardship, poor political will, and a lack of decisive action and good public administration from the very top, from this Government and every government preceding it. While I cautiously welcome the Government taking infrastructure development seriously and bringing this plan forward, I fear it may be the same old rigmarole - reports, committees, speeches like this one, commitments and ideas without the proper governmental leadership that developing our country demands. I hope the Government does better.

I thank the Minister for being here and for facilitating this discussion today. I commend him and his Department on the work done to date in trying to speed up the delivery of key infrastructure projects. Setting up the accelerating infrastructure task force and the action plan that emerged from that with 30 specific action points are very welcome. This progress is welcome. I want to focus today on transport infrastructure in particular. As the Minister knows, our road network is choked with traffic congestion in many of our urban areas, particularly in the morning and evening peak times. Even outside these hours we come across heavy congestion on our road network. It is debilitating for any economy to have a road network choked with traffic to the extent that we now are, not to mention the impact on people's everyday lives. We have to come up with measures to reduce this congestion. We have to invest our way out of it in terms of infrastructure. Of course, we need to provide people with alternatives to our road network, such as better and improved public transport and of course continued investment in our active travel routes across the country. We also need to invest in our road network. We need to make our road junctions more efficient. We need to invest and we need to design and build new roads where necessary. We have to take a broad approach to this. There is no single answer to reducing the congestion we experience on our road network on a daily basis. I want to focus on the transportation aspect in Cork. Unfortunately, we have ongoing issues with the reliability of our bus service and the slow roll-out of BusConnects. This is something that I and other Deputies have raised continually to see if we can make progress on this. The Cork Luas project will be transformational for Cork city and is something the city and its people deserve. An 18 km stretch of light rail serving 25 different stops along the way will be transformative and make huge difference but we need to speed up the delivery of this project. It has been estimated it could take up to ten years for this to be constructed and become operational, which is far too long. A final preferred route is due to be announced in the coming months. I ask the Minister and his Department to do everything possible to ensure this project progresses at pace because we simply need it to happen in Cork for everyday life and also from an economic point of view. It is highly regrettable and a missed opportunity that the Cork Luas project will not serve Cork Airport. This is something we need to look at even at this late stage because connectivity to the airport and the city centre is critically important. We also need to consider the route in the context of the large residential areas on the southern side of the city.

I am Vice Chair of the infrastructure committee. I know the Minister will be coming to the committee later on and we may be able to discuss some of these topics in detail. I welcome the national development plan of €102 billion, which is a huge amount of money to spend. Ultimately, we are only playing catch-up on the money that probably should have been spent in previous years. The percentage that we were spending was not commensurate with the 16% that we are going to be spending in the future. I also welcome the accelerated infrastructure task force and the plan behind it which is an attempt to rid Ireland of the unnecessary blockages and bloated bureaucracy that we have become all too accustomed to in this country. When people think of infrastructure we think of roads and rail which are overground. We think of water and wastewater which are underground. Often what is not considered is the social infrastructure that is needed to knit communities together. North Kildare, with its rapidly growing population, is lacking vital social infrastructure. I have referenced many times before in this Chamber the need for school improvements, new school buildings and more crèches to be introduced into large growing towns along with other amenities such as playgrounds and greenways as well as obviously the need for a new swimming pool in north Kildare. In the last couple of weeks, I have been dealing with the need for a new school in Celbridge and we have major issues with St. Patrick's National School. We have an issue with spaces for children going into schools in Naas and Leixlip. These have been coming on my desk in the last couple of weeks and indeed are continuing today. I am working closely with the Minister, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, on those but at the same time these are emblematic of the issues we are facing in north Kildare. Houses are being built by the thousand in my constituency, which is great and ultimately that is what the Government desires, but at the same time, we are not delivering on behalf of our communities. The national development plan addresses major infrastructure issues that are needed for the area but at the same time it is not building for the communities behind that. Kildare has another problem to go along with these issues. Towns like Leixlip, Kilcock and Naas are thriving as regards housing but ultimately their town and village centres are not thriving. Large-scale URDF funding has not gone into these towns and villages in the past and ultimately that is where we need to get to. Overall, I welcome the plan but at the same time we need to renew our communities. We also need to renew our town and village centres.

We are at this point in our development as a country because we had no regard for reform or for strategy in the last 20 years. We are now talking about the investment that we are going to make but I want to know what is going to happen to the projects that require the funding and need to be taken out of the bureaucratic mess they are in. The completion of the ring road in Kilkenny is absolutely essential to the perfect development of the city but it is not happening. The N24 and N25 along with the N80 in Carlow need funding and need to be moved on in the process. The railway station in Kilkenny is blighted by the fact that Iarnród Éireann will not respond on upgrading the goods shed in that area and, as a result, the city is impacted. The flood-relief schemes in Graiguenamanagh, Callan and Inistioge need to be pushed through the bureaucratic process so that the lives of families are not impacted any more by virtue of the floods that we are experiencing. The 2006 regulations for wind farms have not been corrected yet. We have not got an up-to-date version of them. It is an unfair playing field in that regard and it is destroying rural Ireland. Where are these regulations? When will they be presented? When will we have some certainty around them? The school bus system has never been reformed. Every single year there is an issue with school buses. Whether it is in Gowran, Ballyhale or in any other county in the country, it is a huge issue. There is no desire to reform. We have a city bus system in Kilkenny. It has not been extended, as it should be, to places like Hebron Park and hotels and businesses on the outskirts of the city. On the Bennettsbridge roundabout, TII moved in, did an adjustment and caused havoc with traffic. We cannot get it to see common sense and go back and do what needs to be done. When will we see common sense?

All of us in this room are in agreement that the infrastructure plan has to deliver. We have to be absolutely unapologetic about getting our critical infrastructure across the line and delivered for our people. We have to be honest about increasing housing delivery, which is a huge concern for everyone in this House, no more than for the Minister. What is honesty holding it back? In reality it is our infrastructure deficits. It is not lack of ambition. It is about constraints on housing and community development. First and foremost, our water and wastewater infrastructure is at capacity in many places. In Drogheda, Dundalk and Ardee, and across north and south Louth, developments that are zoned, viable and ready to proceed are stalled because the water systems, and indeed the electrical grid, cannot cope. Young families are paying the price for years of underdevelopment and slow delivery. Transport is the next major blocker. Our rail infrastructure has not kept pace with population growth, nor has our road infrastructure. We have, thankfully, increased capacity on the Dublin-Belfast line but we are stuck in the middle because we need additional car spaces. People are curtailed from using train services because they cannot get parking. We have to plan for an additional train station in County Louth, whether in Dunleer in mid-Louth or in Drogheda, to create sustainable commutes and unlock housing delivery. High-density housing without transport capacity simply shifts the problem from planning to congestion. On roads, the case is equally clear. The PANCR route in Drogheda is essential to relieving chronic congestion and enabling residential and economic development. Ardee is another town long overdue a bypass. It remains gridlocked and choking under congestion and fumes. In Dundalk, we need a link road connecting with the Armagh Road, which is critical to relieving the pressure in the town centre and supporting balanced growth. Infrastructure does not stop at transport and utilities. Our health infrastructure in Louth is under severe strain. Bed capacity in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital has not kept pace with population growth, leading to overcrowding and unacceptable pressure on patients and staff. At the same time, there is the need for a surgical hub in Dundalk and for full utilisation of Louth County Hospital to reduce waiting lists, improve patient flow and deliver care closer to homes. Louth's population is growing. That is expected and planned for. It is not acceptable to allow delivery to lag behind demographic reality such that services are constantly in crisis mode. Housing is not just about units; it is about building communities, as the Minister will agree, with access to healthcare, transport, education, culture and social life.

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on this important issue. There is a certain degree of scepticism in my attitude to the Government's new-found interest in critical infrastructure. I have been a Deputy for a decade. I am one of a number of people on this side of the House who have been talking about lack of investment, lack of reform and lack of ambition regarding critical infrastructure and delivery of key projects involving housing, renewable energy and public transport. Despite the fact we have many times proposed changes that are required, only recently has the Government started to join the conversation. I will name some of those. Unless the Government delivers these, its new-found interest in addressing infrastructure deficits caused by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments over the decades will only be words. Water is a case in point. Most people will name it during this debate. For two years, Uisce Éireann was looking for increased capital funding to improve waste and wastewater treatment; for two years, the Government delayed. Even still, despite the big announcements in the last budget, Uisce Éireann does not have clarity on what additional funding it will get from now until 2030 and for what pieces of critical infrastructure. Those are the facts. Worse than that, reasonable demands of the utility for parallel planning and consenting and for prioritisation of critical infrastructure in the planning system were ignored by Government during the passage of the controversial Planning and Development Act 2024. When the Opposition tabled amendments to give effect to those reasonable demands of Uisce Éireann and others, they were voted down by the Government. The electricity grid is the other one. I live in a constituency, Dublin Mid-West, where the Castlebaggot supply substation was recently built, primarily, if not exclusively, to service new housing and industry. It has all been swallowed up by data centres. The Government cannot say it wants to increase grid capacity for housing and employment when, at the same time, it lifts the cap and continues to prioritise data centres over critical infrastructure. Transport is the same. While there are nowhere near enough homes, particularly social and affordable homes, being built in my constituency, it still has significant increased residential development. However, a key piece of public infrastructure, the DART+ South West through Clonburris and Adamstown strategic development zones, has been delayed for five years because the Government is unwilling to fund it in accordance with the original commitment of the Minister in the previous Government. If we do not get those basics right and if we continue to strangle our local authorities and approved housing bodies with too little funding and too much red tape for the delivery of social and affordable homes, then the folks on the other side of the Chamber can talk all they want about tackling the deficits but things will not change. Crucially, we have to stop scapegoating others for the failures of Government to invest in and resource our planning system and courts to ensure good-quality planning decisions are made in a timely manner and that, on the infrequent occasions they are judicially reviewed, those JRs happen in a timely manner. The Government has starved our local authority planning sections of resources and failed to adequately staff the planning and environment court to deal with planning matters. Until those issues are dealt with, decisions will take too long. I will judge the Government by what it delivers, not by what it promises. On the basis of what it has not delivered to date, I will not hold my breath.

The national development plan is a plan for continued State failure to provide the basic services that working-class people need. There are no big new ideas in it. It is doubling down on a failed model of relying on the private market to deliver. It never has and it never will. Since I joined the Committee of Public Accounts, it has struck me that in 99% of cases, the scandals people hear about regarding waste of public funds are really cases of private companies ripping off the State. Hospital consultants set up private companies to profit from insourcing in the same under-resourced public hospitals they are paid to work in as public servants. It is happening in loads of hospitals, not just St. James's; it is also happening in Tallaght where €5 million has been spent on insourcing in the past five years. It is well-connected contractors and legal and consultancy firms getting millions of euro annually in Government contracts to charge the State through the nose for things the State should be doing directly. A key part of the answer to our infrastructural deficit is a State construction company to deliver the investment and projects we need. It should not be too much to ask in 2026 that, when it rains heavily, we should not have sewage flowing into our parks. I have been raising this issue for years about Dodder Valley Park and Balrothery Weir. What happened yesterday was entirely predictable. Again, sewage came flowing out because we got a high amount of rainfall. For years we have been pursuing Irish Water to invest in this. It has not been doing it. It says it is doing it now and is at stage 4. It simply is not good enough. It should not be too much to ask for that not to happen in our parks.

I absolutely support accelerating the delivery of critical infrastructure such as transport, water and electricity network across the country. I particularly welcome pillar 3 of the infrastructure plan. It looks to build capacity in the construction sector. We desperately need to increase capacity across infrastructure, housing and road projects to meet current and future demand. Pillar 4 will introduce measures to strengthen co-operation between the utilities and local authorities. Too often, there has been a serious lack of communication between public representatives and utility providers. We simply cannot get the answers. It undermines effective planning and erodes public trust when elected officials are excluded from timely, meaningful dialogue, local knowledge is ignored and communities are left in the dark. Clear consistent communication is not a courtesy of infrastructure development; it is absolutely necessary. Major infrastructural decisions such as the blanket restrictions on building alongside the N56 in Donegal, which Councillor Denis McGee has advocated for for years and which has prevented families from building on their own land, must be reconsidered with clear and early engagement with public representatives when implementing this infrastructural plan. I am wary of some actions detailed in the plan. Limiting judicial reviews to speed up infrastructural planning is the wrong approach. Judicial reviews exist because there is a genuine need to fill gaps where procedures have failed. People resort to them because constitutional rights to fair procedures, equality before law and access to justice are being undermined. We cannot limit these rights. We must not get rid of judicial reviews.

I want to register how ludicrously short a time we have on this discussion. Seriously, we have five speakers here getting a minute and a bit each - madness.

That is a matter for the Business Committee.

I know, but we are a minority on that. The Minister is not even here, which frequently happens by the time our group comes up.

On a point of order, the Minister is gone to the infrastructure committee.

Yes, I know.

It is not starting until 4 o'clock.

If you continue on, you are wasting time. Go ahead, Deputy Coppinger.

I know but it has to be said-----

It is you who has the floor.

I am not going to get a chance to bring up all the infrastructural needs of my constituency. There are 140,000 people. We have no light rail system. I will just mention one area which is the Tyrrelstown and Hollystown area. It is so symptomatic of the way developer-led planning happens in this country, which is one of the headings that is used in the strategy. Some 1,400 houses were recently added on in Hollystown, for example, but there is no direct bus route into the city centre. TDs outside Dublin may think we have a Minister there and we are laughing. Far from it. We have had Ministers in Dublin West and we have had taoisigh in Dublin West. We have been tripping over Ministers but we never get the investment we need in infrastructure. We should have a Luas running from Broombridge to Blanchardstown centre, where, by the way, they have just introduced parking charges and all the buses are routed through there. There is no direct bus from Hollystown into the city centre. I have been approached by a woman who ends up walking on her own in the dark late at night trying to get to work in Dublin Port from the Tyrrelstown area. Again, it is ludicrously slow in terms of developing it. Those issues are real issues that people are facing in their lives.

The N80 goes through the town centres of Portlaoise and Mountmellick. It is causing chaos in both towns and no progress is being made on relief roads. Mountmellick relief road was promised 20 years ago. All traffic from the midlands and the west, including a large number of HGVs, is going through the town centre of Mountmellick trying to negotiate tricky junctions, going through O'Connell Square and past the very busy secondary school. A route has been selected. The surveys have been done. The council has played its part. However, it is being ignored for decades by the Government and that is not good enough. Portlaoise has two national secondary routes going through it, namely, the N78 and the N80. The N80 is the one I live on. There is a huge population around it. The population of Portlaoise is increasing. The towns of Mountmellick and Portlaoise are gridlocked much of the day. People living on the Ballyfin Road, Harpur's Lane and Greenmill Lane have huge difficulties, including the person speaking here, trying to get out onto that road. Trucks have to pass under a very low bridge. They often hit the bridge and everything stops for a number of hours. In the short time I have, I will call for small roundabouts at the junctions of Ballyfin Road, Greenmill Lane and Harpur's Lane. However, we really need the Portlaoise northern orbital route, which will connect the N80 at Fairgreen right across to the Dublin Road. That is a priority project of Laois County Council, as is the Mountmellick bypass, but the Government does not seem to be listening. I want the Government to take this on board here today. It would not just shorten journeys. It would lesson the gridlock in Portlaoise town and in Mountmellick, and it would free up hundreds of acres for housing development. A lot of housing development is being pushed to Portlaoise but we do not have the infrastructure. Both Mountmellick and Portlaoise need relief roads. The Government cannot keep ignoring it.

I thank Deputy Stanley.

The last thing I want to say is that the flood relief schemes need to be speeded up as 17 years or 18 years is just too long.

Cherrywood in south Dublin is one of the biggest residential developments in Europe and the biggest in Ireland. It is a new town. There is going to be 25,000 to 30,000 people living there. The whole thing was conditional on the development of a town centre with community facilities, supermarkets and all the rest of it. The private developers who built the houses and made big profits are refusing to build the town centre on which the whole thing was predicated and are trying to put the State over a barrel on the town centre the community needs for this new town. They are just refusing to build it and are refusing to build bridges that were committed to. At the same time, I understand a group of private investors have asked the State for between €60 million and €80 million to build an ice rink and stadium in Cherrywood. While the town centre is not being built and grassroots sports groups and so on are crying out for facilities, a group of private investors, and I believe this is being entertained by a number of Departments, want to build a private ice rink for ice hockey. I spoke to the Irish Ice Hockey Association and it is not even in favour of it. Its representatives say for a fraction of that, they could build an ice rink, which would be good to have in Ireland but this is going to be given to private investors at massive cost when there is no town centre and when grassroots sports, including ice hockey itself, are starved of the money necessary to provide sports infrastructure for the people living in places like Cherrywood and in the wider area. I want this investigated. There is no way a €60 million to €80 million handout should be given to big private investors when there is no town centre in Cherrywood and when grassroots sports are desperate for money for sports infrastructure.

I raise again the issue of flood relief schemes in my own constituency of Carlow and Kilkenny. My own home town of Graiguenamanagh and Thomastown, Inistioge and various towns and villages around the constituency have once again been devastated by the impacts of flooding. The miraculous or crazy thing here is that we have known about this for so long. In 2018, the Minister of State, Deputy Boxer Moran, announced funding was to be put in place for six towns and villages in Kilkenny. My home town of Graiguenamanagh was flooded in 2016 and that flood relief scheme was promised. It went to design stage in February 2020. It has only gone for planning last December to An Coimisiún Pleanála. I appeal to the Minister to please get on to An Coimisiún Pleanála and speed up the process so that people, individuals and businesses in Graiguenamanagh will not have to endure yet again the traumatic circumstances around flooding in that town and village. How can it take ten years for these schemes to go ahead?

Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens.

Not only that but Thomastown was also approved in 2018 and the scheme has not been advanced at all. Why can these schemes not be run concurrently? Why do we have to do Graiguenamanagh and let that get to this stage and all the rest of them are sitting on a shelf waiting to go? Staff are already employed by Kilkenny County Council to progress these schemes. Surely to God, in this day and age, when we are taking about infrastructure, we can make sure that schemes can run concurrently and the ball can start rolling. This has been going on years. I am only in this Chamber a year. This is ten years ago. I saw a photo recently of Graiguenamanagh in 1926 when flooding happened and yet nothing has happened. I pay tribute to the staff of Kilkenny and Carlow County Councils in terms of the area staff but also all the road crews and the fire services in both counties for the incredible work they have done over the past number of days making sure our people, our citizens, are safe. However, there is a huge clean-up job to be done as well, so additional funding is going to be required. I am calling the Minister of State to speak with his colleagues and with the powers that be to make sure funding is made available for the clean-up operation and for the deterioration of the road infrastructure that is happening right around the country. I have loads of examples from the past couple of days in the Rower, Graiguenamanagh, Skeaghvasteen, Gowran, Ballyhale, Dungarvan, Borris and St. Mullins where roads are falling away due to the devastation caused by and the impact of the flooding or the rainfall in January.

I call Deputy Naoise Ó Cearúil.

Let us make sure the funding is made available because we cannot let these towns and villages suffer anymore. We need to protect them and look after them. I represent the people of Carlow-Kilkenny and we need to make sure the funding is made available, not next year, not in two years' time-----

Deputy Cleere-----

-----but now. I will not be silenced. I will always stand up for the people of Carlow-Kilkenny.

Good man.

However, it is not right that these flood relief schemes have not been progressed at the speed they should have been. There have been people in this Chamber for years and decades who have done nothing about it. I am not going to do nothing. I am going to stand up for these people. Let us make this funding available-----

We will see what you do now.

-----and make sure these schemes are delivered as soon as possible, running currently-----

We will see what you get.

I demand that this happen.

The most frequent issue I raise in this Chamber is the issue of infrastructure. While I welcome the infrastructure plan, and there is a lot to it and some excellent developments in it, particularly in terms of national infrastructure, what it fails to do and what we are not focusing on but should be focusing on is the social infrastructure throughout the country, especially in our towns and villages that are growing exponentially. When I speak about social infrastructure, I speak about the Garda stations. Maynooth, Celbridge and Kilcock all have part-time Garda stations. Celbridge has a population of 22,000 and it has a part-time Garda station. Maynooth, with a population of over 22,000 and an additional 17,000 students, has a part-time Garda station. There is no primary care centre for Leixlip. These are significant issues. In the context of schools, St. Patrick's National School in Celbridge is falling to bits. There are serious issues with funding for Stepping Stones Special School in Maynooth. The three school campus in Celbridge is still only at design stage 2a. This means that Celbridge Community School, St. Raphael's Special School and St. Patrick's National School are still waiting for their school building projects to progress. Salesian Secondary School in Celbridge still has waiting lists. Maynooth Post Primary School still has waiting lists. There are people still waiting to get into Maynooth Community College. Families are finding this particularly difficult, and we need to really address what is happening. While it is welcome that we are addressing large infrastructural plans, we need to be ensuring families feel secure in the context of education, health and safety in the communities in which they live. It is incumbent on us to deliver that. This infrastructure plan, as good as it is in focusing on national delivery, which is long needed, does not focus on the critical issues facing families here today. I am speaking specifically of families in Kildare North, but it extends to areas in Meath, Dublin and Wicklow as well. On the infrastructure plan, one matter to which I want to refer is the skills shortage and the major bottleneck relating to the national workforce strategy. We need to ensure that we have this strategy in place in order that we can, in turn, make sure we have the skills required to develop the roads, hospitals and other the key elements of infrastructure that we need. While the focus should rightly be on national infrastructure, as it is in this plan, which I welcome, we need to ensure that we have a social infrastructure plan that focuses on towns and villages and high-growth areas and delivers what families really deserve.

I take this opportunity to highlight a very strong example of how Government investment in infrastructure and regeneration can deliver a real and measurable impact. That example is Clonmel, which is identified as a key economic driver in the regional economic and spatial strategy. Clonmel has spent the past number of years doing exactly what national policy has encouraged towns to do, namely developing a coherent, strategic, long-term regeneration plan, backed by delivery capacity and local commitment. The Clonmel strategic transformation plan for the period to 2030 is not aspirational; it is practical, detailed and ready to proceed. Under URDF call 1, Clonmel demonstrated that readiness by delivering shovel-ready projects at a time when very few towns could do so. Those projects, such as the Kickham Barracks Plaza and the regional sports hub, were successfully funded and delivered. Since then, our ambition has only grown. Having regard to the upcoming URDF call 4, Clonmel is uniquely positioned. Planning permission is in place, design work is complete and tender documentation is ready. Tipperary County Council can move immediately on town-centre public realm works valued at approximately €21 million. Matched funding of €5.25 million has already been set aside. The level of local alignment is particularly positive. The local authority is ready. Businesses have stepped up. All stakeholders are willing to work as one. The community is fully behind the programme. This is exactly the type of place where national capital investment can achieve maximum return. As we look towards the URDF call 4, Clonmel represents a low-risk, high-impact investment that is advanced, deliverable and capable of immediate mobilisation. Supporting Clonmel in a meaningful way would demonstrate the strength of the infrastructure plan in backing towns that are ready to deliver and committed to long-term regeneration. This is a real opportunity to complete a strategic vision that has been carefully built over many years and to show how national and local government can work together to renew our regional towns successfully.

The new buzzword of this Government is "infrastructure". It blames local authorities, Uisce Éireann, the NTA and An Coimisiún Pleanála for things. The Government blames everyone. I do not know if the Minister of State gets it. Does he think we are all fools over here? We are not fools; we know what is happening. Those opposite are in government. Fine Gael has been in office 15 years and Fianna Fáil for 11. All of these problems were caused by them; they were not caused by us. Now, the Government has come out with this new infrastructure plan. It is trying to pass the buck. Will someone in this Government ever stand up and take responsibility for their job? Ultimately, the Government is responsible but is not providing solutions. We on the Opposition benches are trying to give it solutions. We want to work with it. We want to do so because the people we represent have no housing and cannot get hospital appointments. There is a crisis in this country. What has the Government done? It has brought out a new, shiny booklet that looks great. It runs to 140 pages, 110 of which outline the problems and indicate why there is a crisis and an emergency in the area of housing. The document does not say that the Government has been in power for the past 15 years. The Government is blaming everyone else. There are 30 actions in this plan that are listed out across 30 pages. The Government must be trying to destroy the rainforests in the Amazon. It has produced a 140-page document, but for what? One of the actions in the plan for delivering housing - this is going to fix the housing crisis - relates to enhancing Government communication and promoting the importance of infrastructure delivery. Is the Government serious? Can the Minister of State seriously stand over this kind of bull? People are crying out for homes. Nearly 6,000 children are homeless. Three generations of families are living in box bedrooms. There are towns and villages in which houses cannot be built because there is no wastewater infrastructure. The Government talks about better communication. Will it build houses? Will it get Irish Water to deliver water and the infrastructure we need? Do not blame the NTA. Do not blame Uisce Éireann. Do not blame TII and, certainly, do not blame An Coimisiún Pleanála. For years, the Government underfunded the latter. It knew there was a backlog and it did nothing. It has now come out with this document, which outlines what it is going to do. The Government should do its job and build houses. That is what it needs to do. That is what people want the Government to do. We will work with the Government. I do not believe the Government wants to solve the housing crisis. If it did, it would not be putting forward stuff like this that is nonsensical.

This Government is the worst in the history of the State when it comes to the delivery of infrastructure. In practically every infrastructural space, its projects are either grinding to a halt or going way over budget. For ten years, under this Government, Ireland was at the very bottom of European spending on infrastructure per capita. That is incredible. It is really hard to listen to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs line up to complain about the infrastructural deficits in this country when it is their Government who has actually caused those deficits. Housing is in tatters, and misery is being visited upon young families as a result. It will be 2050 before Uisce Éireann fills the gaps that are currently stopping the building of homes. Leo Varadkar said that the national children's hospital would be built for €700 million by 2020, save for an asteroid hitting the planet. The cost is now €2.4 billion and the hospital has still not opened. Midleton has been waiting for flood defences for 14 years. In the 14 years since the Government promised flood defences for Midleton, a planning application has not been submitted to Cork County Council. On the news over the past number of hours, we have seen the number of areas that have been hammered by flooding. The Government is refusing to pay for the damage done to cars. It is refusing to pay for the infrastructure and for the damage done to cars. That is really hard for people to take, given the Government funded the fixing of cars for people from Ukraine in the past year. There should be no payment given to any group of people in this country that is not available to Irish citizens as well. It is a threat to social cohesion if the Government continues what is doing in that regard. The Navan to Dublin rail line was built in three years in the 1860s by workers using picks and shovels. The new project in that regard is going to take 42 years, from concept to completion, and that will be if no judicial review takes place. It is really important that the Government gets its act together in the context of infrastructural development.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. I welcome anything that will help with infrastructure. The Government's failure is that it shoved people into the cities that had some infrastructure. What did it do then? It closed down every town and village around Ireland. What did that do? It drove up the price of houses because of a lack of supply. Askeaton has done without a sewerage system for 46 years. It is due to be done some time this year. However, we have been hearing that for 46 years. Dromcolliher has been waiting 15 years for an upgrade of the system. Hospital-Herbertstown had to put in on-site systems after they built 20 houses there. They had to put five of them on an on-site system because the sewerage system could not take housing. By moving people into the cities and driving up the prices, and by not allowing people's children to move home from the cities, the Government has closed down the infrastructure in all our towns and villages. There has been a lack of infrastructure for years and all it has come up with is a plan. Plans are on paper; delivery is on the ground. We have given the Government ideas and solutions to everything it has come up with but it will spend millions of euro again on paperwork with no delivery. When is it going to deliver? When is it going to listen to the Opposition that has given it the answer on delivery? That is what the question is.

We are talking about infrastructure here today. We brought forward a motion two weeks ago in relation to Uisce Éireann, and the Government voted against it. It really stood for accountability and timelines. When the Government is not willing to stand up to something like Uisce Éireann in terms of accountability and timelines, that says enough. It sends a clear message to me. There is a wastewater crisis all over west Cork. It has been 28 years in Shannonvale, 17 years in Dunmanway, Rosscarbery and Ballydehob, and 27 years in Goleen. There is no mains water pipe from Shannonvale to Roscarbery. It has burst; it bursts every so often. It broke down again during Christmas. People are in an awful state, and they are getting nowhere. It is only a small section of an area that needs to be done. Bantry experienced flooding in 1968 and in 2025. It is one hit on top of the other. There are also new regulations I need to bring up. It brings me to the utter confusion and the fear new regulations have created in the construction sector. Many small contractors and subcontractors have been contacting me in recent days who are fearful of this January deadline. These contractors do not know if they will be deemed to be breaking the law in February by a change of status that is threatening them. This will drive up the costs, as contractors will have to now take on casual subcontractors as full-time employees just to cover the small-time work they have. There will be no infrastructure built if the Government throttles to death the contractors and subcontractors who are confused over it. I have to touch on Airbnb, which comes under housing as well. People have contacting me day and night recently about the new regulations. They are going to destroy their chances. One question is being asked by them: do they need planning? If they need planning, that means they are finished. They know Airbnbs are being wiped out. All over west Cork, there are fantastic places offering a brilliant service to people, and the Government is going to destroy that industry.

I read the Government's plan. I read all 140 pages, plus the 17 pages of the Minister, Deputy Chambers's speech in which he called it an accelerated infrastructure plan. I have to say that if that is accelerated, I truly would hate to see the Government in reverse because this is a backward plan. That plan does nothing and delivers nothing. The Government's 140-page document barely talks about Cork. It does not talk about the northern distributor road in Cork. It does not talk about the Mallow relief road in Cork. It does not talk about the Cork to Limerick motorway. It does not mention the northern ring road in Cork. It does not mention that the ESB supply that is needed for the 1,000-acre Industrial Development Authority, IDA, site in Cork to be upgraded to facilitate the southern region. It does not even take into account the 2040 counterbalance plan. I represent the 42nd most congested city in the world - Cork. How many park-and-ride facilities has it got? It has one park-and-ride facility. The Government has not even put in a plan which connects the Cork Luas. By the way, there is not a shovel in the ground on that. It has not connected the Cork Luas all the way from the airport into the city. We have a situation where buses are coming into Cork city. People who are coming from Thurles, Tipperary and different areas who want to use Cork Airport cannot get a bus directly to Cork city. That is how bad BusConnects and the infrastructure development is there. Then the Government had the audacity in the House last week to have the minister for silence, otherwise known as Pádraig O'Sullivan, give out to and admonished those on this side of the House, and tell them to shut up and stay quiet about the €1 billion that is needed for the north side of Cork. We should all stay quiet, and we should let people drink poisoned water, according to Deputy O'Sullivan. We heard the other gentleman from Carlow-Kilkenny just a moment ago. I swear to God but I thought I was listening to someone on this side of the House because he seems to forget that his own party is in power. That is absolutely ridiculous.

As the Leas-Cheann Comhairle knows, I have some experience of being angry and losing my rag but it has to be used sparingly. In this context, I would use words like "exasperation", "frustration", "cynicism" and "being jaded overall" in terms of Government promises that have never been brought forward. I am, therefore, trying to put on my positive hat for a second. Obviously, this plan is trying to employ 62 people in an infrastructure division in the Department of public expenditure and reform with a whole lot of technical experts trying to bring all the agencies together. On paper, that is a good thing because they have not been working together in a holistic way but, unfortunately, the actual amount of investment that is required for our energy grid and water infrastructure is a paltry amount. We should be borrowing and even breaching the EU growth and stability pact to invest in the infrastructure that will actually gain us revenue down the line. We are doing it too slowly. I take on board that we do have, let us say, people who take judicial reviews who do not always have the common good at heart. I do take a board on board that we have to restrict that but, equally, there are communities in my constituency and all around the country who put in submissions and object to proposals because they want infrastructure and facilities tied in alongside housing. In areas like the Clonburris strategic development zone, it is a very poor SDZ. Adamstown is a little bit better. There are a lot of areas around my constituency where the Government is putting in lots of houses but no infrastructure. It has to make sure that it follows up like with Dart+ South West, for example, or the Luas to Lucan and increased capacity for the Luas to Saggart. All these things go together. I am quite jaded but prove me wrong.

I want to say something very briefly about this report, which I really welcome. I have only been here a year, and the Minister of State is here a little bit longer, but it is the only one I have seen in a year that has an action plan with dates. There is a very clear statement on what has to be done. On page 71 of the original report are 30 actions adopted with a clear timeline, the responsibility in terms of a Department on each and oversight and accountability clearly laid out. Often, we do not get to see that in the public service. It is really positive that the report is laid out. Now the Government has to keep toes and feet to the fire in the various Departments and groups that are laid out with responsibility for those actions. I know there will inevitably be issues with various actions but as long as they are managed and the overall thrust of this excellent piece of work is delivered, then we will make great progress in the next few years. I ask the Minister of State to make sure that feet are kept to the fire when it comes to those actions so that they happen in the way that it is laid out.

I certainly welcome this plan. It is very timely in terms of where we are as a country. There is a commitment from a multi-annual funding perspective, and it shows delivery, whether it be housing, energy, transport or water. In order to achieve delivery, however, we need co-ordination. I can give the Minister of State just one example of where modern methods of construction today are being used to reduce and mitigate the risk from a safety perspective on construction sites and also improve quality. What it is leading to are larger loads, yet we have a situation in the country where our emphasis is on supporting and investing in cycling and pedestrian pathways. When we do that, however, we put obstacles in the way of abnormal loads and exceptional abnormal loads at a time when local authorities are reducing the weight limits and putting more barriers in place for companies that are trying to transport larger loads. This is only going to get worse because of modern methods of construction. I have seen it first hand in my constituency with Banagher concrete. What it is going to see, in essence, is that if these load restrictions continue, the product portfolio and options it will have will reduce and the cost of what it will have will increase, making it less affordable for people to actually build houses and infrastructure at a time when we need rates to be competitive. I ask the Minister of State to take that point on board. We need to deliver, deliver, deliver, and that needs co-ordination. I am an advocate for cyclists and pedestrians but we need to be able to advocate, and more so in the future, for abnormal loads in order to serve and make the contributions we need to infrastructure development sites right across the country.

This issue is critical, particularly in the context of our need to deliver housing across the State. If we are to deliver homes, we must ensure that we have in place critical energy infrastructure and water and wastewater infrastructure. The first question the person in charge of every State agency should be asking every morning is what is he or she doing to help to address the housing crisis. If those people are not asking that question, their vision is clearly wrong and perhaps they are in the wrong job. I can cite many examples in my constituency where if we can see the unlocking of lands through investment in roads, water, wastewater and energy, it will facilitate the building of a lot more housing. I refer again to the cases of Ferns and Camolin in County Wexford, where we are dying to build more homes but where there is no wastewater capacity. It is a similar situation in Aughrim, County Wicklow. Allowing private development of wastewater treatment plants to the necessary specifications in those areas would be a very positive development. Investment in education is a critical part of infrastructure delivery. I acknowledge that the Government has invested significantly in capital projects in education but I am extremely disappointed that in the announcement today regarding the schools building programme under the NDP, not a single school within the Wicklow-Wexford constituency is included in the list. What criteria were used to determine which schools were included? Two schools have been waiting a very long time for the necessary investment to move beyond stage 2b. I have always referred to that stage as the purgatory within the Department of education, whereby projects get to design stage but then tenders are not issued. The first school is Bunclody Community College, which has only three mainstream classes that are not in prefabricated buildings. The school operates on two campuses, which requires students to walk 500 m from one set of prefabricated buildings to another. It is an excellent school that provides a top-class education, yet it has some of the poorest facilities I have ever seen. The other school, which is just up the road, is Coláiste Bhríde in Carnew. Again, it is an excellent school but it has been waiting a long time to address the problem that its 900 students are learning in completely inadequate buildings. I have asked what criteria were used to determine which schools were included in today's announcement. Only one school in County Wexford and three in County Wicklow, none of them in my constituency, are included. Fair play to the schools that are getting this investment but I note that ten schools in County Galway were given approval today. I need to know the criteria, particularly when I see the conditions under which some students and staff have to operate within my constituency. I would be grateful if the Minister of State would convey my concerns to the Department. The Government has a proud record of investing in education and in our capital programmes but we are not seeing that investment being delivered fairly across the country. I fail to see why regard is not being had to the demands of rapidly growing communities and constituencies such as Wicklow-Wexford.

I take this opportunity to acknowledge the 60th anniversary of the death of Mike Quill, the great union leader in New York who worked in that city's subway system for many years. He always preached an anti-racist message. He was involved in the struggle for the country of his birth, fighting in the War of Independence, and the struggle for his fellow workers in New York. Everywhere we turn, we see infrastructure that is undersupplied, overloaded and crumbling. Our creaking infrastructure, a deepening housing crisis, a broken planning system and critical deficits in water and energy are the direct result of a decade and a half of Government inaction, outsourcing and short-termism. What is the Government's answer? It produces another announcement accompanied by a glossy document but without any real action. This is a do-nothing Government scrambling to fix the problems of its own making. In 2007, planning was deregulated by the then Government. In 2017, it was deregulated again with the introduction of the strategic housing development scheme, which slowed down planning, failed to increase supply and led to smaller and darker apartments. Now, once again, we have an action plan that bows to the interests of major developers rather than empowering local government and communities. It talks about a cultural shift but we need more than that. We need a transformation in our approach and a Government that is willing to step up and deliver for the people rather than being beholden to the corporate balance sheet. For too long, successive Governments have outsourced essential infrastructure to the private sector and left its delivery subject to the whims of market forces. We saw what happened in housing estates all over Kerry when their management was left in the hands of private companies. That approach did not work and the result is what we see today, namely, a seismic deficit in critical infrastructure. The Government's plan acknowledges that project timelines for essential infrastructure for energy, transport and water have doubled over the past two decades. Electricity substations now take eight and a half years to construct, a small wastewater plant takes up to ten years and a major road project up to 15 years, and the costs are way higher. What does this plan say to the people waiting for wastewater in Ballyduff, Duagh, Castlegregory and Fenit in County Kerry, where all there is, in essence, is a hole in the ground and an Imhoff tank within metres of blue flag beaches? Without that critical infrastructure, no more than one or two houses can be built. These inexcusable delays are slowing the delivery of homes, choking off renewable energy, pushing up bills and contributing to a lower quality of life. There is nothing in the plan about North-South infrastructure. We have areas of co-operation under the Good Friday Agreement but that is not enough. Cross-Border communities that rely on integrated road and rail networks, like the Belfast-Dublin economic corridor, require joint planning for road safety, port access and freight movement. The Government needs to catch up on that.

I welcome the Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan. We need to act to ensure the delivery of housing and other infrastructure. I thank the Minister for his engagement on private wires, which is a huge priority for me. It is all about delivery for the people of Ireland. The cost problem at the moment, especially when it comes to the electricity grid, is really hitting families in north Dublin. We talk all the time about high electricity prices, rents and construction costs. I am fed up with words. There are measures that can be taken quickly. At the climate and energy committee, I am constantly pushing for private wires, long-duration energy storage and solar panels to be allowed for plug-in batteries. I do not care who gets the credit for any of this. I have heard these measures mentioned by the Green Party and others. I just want them to be done. As long as they get done and we reduce energy costs, that is the most important thing. We lack a system of consistent and transparent cost-benefit and fiscal sustainability assessments when it comes to major infrastructure projects. I was delighted that an amendment in this regard was accepted by the committee today. We need this to be done, especially when it comes to the public opposing infrastructure projects. If a cost-benefit analysis is done, it is much easier for us to defend a project. The public is paying the price for these failings and it is absolutely wrong. One of the most frustrating issues relates to the constraints on grid access. The people making decisions regarding Ireland's grid are not being held accountable, which is why I would love the Minister to have more power in relation to State and semi-State bodies. As I have pointed out 100 times, a wind farm or solar farm cannot directly supply a nearby factory with energy, even if they are only metres apart, without going through the ESB or Eir. That need to change. I welcome the publication by the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, of the heads of the private wires Bill. That legislation really needs to progress. It will reduce congestion and lower systematic costs. Regarding balcony solar, if we are serious about bringing costs down for ordinary people, we must be honest about what is required. Germany has 1.5 million balcony solar systems installed, with some estimates putting the number even higher. The model is simply: allow plug-in systems, finance them through savings in affordable housing and privatise them for households. Doing so could cut bills by €200 to €400.

I am glad to have an opportunity to ask the Minister of State to prioritise a number of projects in Kerry. The N72 leaves Killarney, going from Ballydowny to the Golden Nugget, and then goes around the Ring of Kerry from the Gap across to Grenagh. It is otherwise known as the Killalee project. These two sections of road are in a desperate state. The road from the Golden Nugget to the Gap Cross has been completed and a fortune has been spent but we are in a worse scenario now because the road has been narrowed and it is not safe for two vehicles of any kind to pass each other. The road from Blackwater Bridge to Tahilla and from Parknasilla to Sneem, also on the eastern side of the Ring of Kerry, is in a desperate state and it is not safe for rigid lorries, articulated lorries and buses to pass each other. I am asking the Government to look at that once again. I have raised it every year since I came up here. I am asking for separate funding for bridges. Whether it is on local, regional or secondary and national primary roads, we have to wait far too long, sometimes two or three years, for these bridges to be repaired. These are bridges built in the 1880s. I am asking for real funding for the local improvement schemes in Kerry this year because there are still over 600 on the list that have not been attended to. All over Kerry we have settlements that either have no sewage treatment plant or are looking for extensions. Castleisland has been looking for an extension for the sewerage scheme there since 1986. Imagine that. I found it above in my father's shed a number of years ago. He was at it at that time. Scartaglin, Corra and Beaufort do not have treatment plants. In Moyvane you cannot build another house. I could go on and on. When Kerry County Council was operating the sewage treatment services it had a list and there was a priority list. I do not know what the Minister of State is reading now but I am asking him to find that priority list and go back through it. These people were promised, almost 20 years ago, that their treatment plant was to be brought forward. There are 170 houses waiting to start in Kenmare, where we have not had a private estate built in 20 years. What we are waiting for now is water. Like I said in the House the other day, we have water coming down out of the sky every day and we are surrounded by lakes up on the hill but there is no water going into the pipe. I am asking the Government once again to deal with this because if the 170 houses are not built and water is the cause, I will clear the whole lot of you out of it myself. This has been going on for long enough.

I thank Members for their constructive and insightful contribution to the debate, which affirms the importance of public investment in the delivery of capital projects and programmes and the urgent need to remove the barriers to infrastructure development. What has been made very clear is that, collectively, we know what the challenges we face are and that infrastructure deficits remain in certain sectors. I thank Members for articulating that. That is why this Government has prioritised investment in water, energy and transport, which will provide the necessary structures to boost national competitiveness and deliver more homes, schools and healthcare facilities. As outlined by my colleague the Minister, Deputy Chambers, in his opening statement, the review of the national development plan sees the largest ever capital investment plan in the history of the State over the period to 2035, with a commitment to invest €275 billion to significantly improve our infrastructure stock. This, in turn, will develop our economy, deliver our housing targets and boost our competitiveness. With such a high level of investment, we need to ensure that the provision of strategic and much-needed infrastructure is delivered in a timely manner, with an emphasis on boosting productivity and resilience and achieving value for money for the Exchequer. That is why the five key commitments for infrastructure delivery outlined in the programme for Government have been implemented. As Members know, the review of the national development plan set out annual sectoral allocations for the period 2026 to 2030 and overall Government capital expenditure ceilings out to 2035. The review considered the most important challenges facing our economy and society, namely, addressing historical infrastructure pressures, ensuring balanced regional development in line with the national planning framework and meeting our climate obligations. To oversee the implementation of the national development plan, a new Cabinet committee on infrastructure has been formed to drive the delivery, accountability and value-for-money of major capital projects. All Departments have published their infrastructure sectoral plans, which provide a clear pipeline of the capital projects to be delivered over the coming years. The National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, has been given a broader remit to provide Departments with financial, procurement and project delivery advice on public infrastructure projects. Furthermore, a new infrastructure division in the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation was established, with a deputy secretary general appointed last December and senior officials allocated and specialist staff appointed since. A core remit of the division was leading and supporting the work of the accelerating infrastructure task force and the Minister, Deputy Chambers, led the publication of two substantial reports. The first, in July of last year, which followed a considerable process of external consultation and engagement, outlined the barriers to infrastructure delivery across the country and noted the regulatory environment, the planning and legal systems, drawing particular attention to the judicial review process, and internal systems across the public service and Civil Service, including fragmented governance, procurement challenges and capacity constraints. This initial barriers report was followed by the Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan published in December. This report outlined five key objectives. These were: to accelerate delivery of critical infrastructure, particularly in the electricity, water, and transport sectors; to accelerate the delivery of all infrastructure by simplifying and streamlining the regulatory and consenting processes for infrastructure in general; to reduce delays caused by judicial reviews, regulatory complexity and fragmented approvals; to enhance co-ordination across government, utilities and local authorities; and to build public and political support for infrastructure projects. The report set out 30 targeted actions across four strategic pillars to deliver on these objectives. The first pillar is legal reform designed to tackle excessive complexity in the regulatory and infrastructure environment at source without compromising on environmental standards, individual rights or good governance. The second pillar focused on regulatory reform with a view to simplifying and standardising processes so that approvals run in parallel, where possible, aligning procedures across agencies, removing duplication and creating processes with predictable timelines and outcomes. The third pillar is the reform of co-ordination and delivery within and across government, and with the construction sector. Alongside the publication of the NDP review, the departmental sectoral plans provide multi-annual funding certainty and outline a strong and clear pipeline of projects. This is a demonstrable commitment by the Government to the construction sector that gives predictability and supports the sector to invest in the capacity, skills and resources needed to meet the demand. On top of this, the new infrastructure division in our Department will take on a proactive oversight and monitoring role, assessing delivery of the action plan and identifying any barriers to impact. The fourth pillar in the actions report focuses on public acceptance and civic engagement. Our ability to deliver on the critically needed infrastructure rests on societal support. The work under this pillar will focus on building public trust, accountability and improving public engagement processes. While infrastructure projects will be disruptive to some, they will benefit many and this pillar will build and support this mindset. Each of the actions that will be undertaken are clearly linked back to the barriers identified, accompanied by clear deadlines for implementation and with the majority focused in 2026. There is clear responsibility for each action and defined measures of success and accountability. Each action will have direct impact but, more importantly, is part of a considered and comprehensive strategic programme of reform. The total impact of the actions will be greater than the sum of the actions individually. Since the publication of the actions report in December, officials in the Department have moved at pace to implement the changes identified and fundamentally shift the ecosystem underpinning Ireland’s infrastructure delivery to support Ireland’s competitiveness, deliver transport, water and energy services fit for the purposes of our growing country and, crucially, to deliver 300,000 new homes by 2030. Senior officials have been appointed, a newly composed infrastructure division has been confirmed and timelines and responsibilities for actions and sub-measures have been submitted. The task force will continue to meet regularly to support the delivery of the plan. As outlined by my colleague the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and reaffirmed here, while we have work to do, we have a clear programme of work to effect change, and we will continue to do everything in our power to increase the capacity to deliver the infrastructure needed for a modern and progressive society. It is simply incorrect to claim judicial review reform is anti-democratic or designed to limit access to the courts. Nothing in the Government's approach removes or restricts the constitutional right to challenge decisions. Judicial reviews remain fully available and all EU-derived environmental safeguards remain intact. The suggestion that the number of judicial reviews is falling is not supported by any official data. The Courts Service report for 2024 stated that 241 new cases entered the planning and environmental list and it has now confirmed that 171 new judicial review proceedings commenced in 2025, out of a total 197 matters, with only 26 relating to non-judicial review applications. The reform agenda builds on the levels of State investment. There are discussions about flooding. As a result, 56 flood relief schemes have now been completed, protecting 30,580 properties. However, I agree that the devastation caused by the flooding has been worrying. We also have the Enniscorthy flood relief scheme. This proposed scheme was refused under the Arterial Drainage Act in March 2022 on the basis of advice from independent environmental consultants, because of the adverse environmental impact of the scheme. I think it was the Taoiseach who said today that we need to protect people and property more sometimes. We have the environmental aspects as well, but we need to balance them in the right way. The social infrastructure is committed for delivery, but it can only be done with the delivery of water, transport and electricity infrastructure. They are constituency projects and I appreciate their importance because I am from a constituency, but we have to have Government co-ordination. I thank Deputies for their insightful participation in today's discussions on infrastructure and I look forward to more questions in the coming weeks and months.