Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 11 December 2025
56. Deputy Paul Lawless asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the steps his Department is taking to address the critical shortage of skilled labour and project management expertise identified as a major constraint on delivering the National Development Plan; and whether additional funding or incentives will be provided to accelerate recruitment and training in the construction sector. [70378/25]
View answerThe National Development Plan Review 2025 set out €275.4 billion in public capital investment to 2035, which represents the largest capital investment programme in the history of the State. My Department has taken several steps, working across Government, to identify and mitigate risks to NDP delivery.
Firstly, the allocation of capital investment through the NDP review prioritised investment in the critical growth-enabling sectors of water, energy, transport and housing. Investment in these sectors is critical to enabling the delivery of 300,000 additional homes and boosting our competitiveness. Clear prioritisation has provided for a structured and coordinated pipeline of the projects to be delivered, which manages labour constraints and allows for the building of expertise within sectors.
This has been supported by each department publishing a sectoral investment plan outlining their priority capital projects and programmes to be delivered over 2026 to 2030. Together with the publication of five-year annual sectoral capital allocations, this provides clarity to the construction sector and prospective workers as to the level of funding and investment over the coming years. This in turn provides greater certainty to the sector to invest in hiring and scaling to prepare commercial bids and deliver on the planned investment.
My Department is also managing the phased rollout of the Building Information Modelling (BIM) mandate. This will provide for efficiencies in the design and construction stages of capital works projects. As of July 2025, consultants engaged to design and oversee the construction of public works contracts with a value in excess of €10 million have had BIM requirements included in the scope of service, applying to contracts with a value over €5 million from January 2026. The phased rollout of the mandate provides a clear signal to the sector to invest in digital transformation, while supports are also being provided for digital adoption and implementation through the Build Digital Project, which receives grant funding from my department. Greater digital adoption within the sector will help to improve productivity and mitigate labour capacity pressures.
In addition, my Department published the Build Report 2025 in November, which provides an overview of construction sector performance and capacity and identifies implications for NDP delivery. The report identifies a number of positive trends, including employment growth in the construction sector of 29,600 (18%) year on year to Q2 2025. Nevertheless, further employment growth will be required to deliver on the NDP.
My department organises the Construction Sector Group, which brings together policymakers and industry to exchange views on issues affecting NDP delivery. The findings of the Build Report will be used to inform these discussions, with a focus on construction sector capacity and productivity to maximise delivery of the record NDP investment.
