Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 May 2026
506. Deputy William Aird asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the steps being taken to ensure adequate multi-annual capital investment in key infrastructure given persistent supply constraints and rising construction costs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39686/26]
View answerAs Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitisation I am responsible for setting the overall capital allocations across Departments and for monitoring monthly expenditure at Departmental level.
As part of the budgetary process each year, my Department sets overall expenditure ceilings for each Ministerial Vote Group. These are laid out at Vote level in the Budget Day Expenditure Report published in October with further detail provided in the Revised Estimates for Public Services published in December.
The Programme for Government set out the clear prioritisation for the NDP Review to ensure that investment can be maximised in the coming five years for strategic infrastructure. This includes the key energy, water and transport networks on which all future development relies. This is critical to allow Government to meet the additional 300,000 homes target and to support competitiveness.
The NDP Review 2025 was published on Tuesday, 22 July 2025, in line with the Programme for Government commitment. The Review set out planned total public investment of €275.4 billion from 2026-2025, and an additional €10 billion in equity release up to 2030. This included €3.5 billion for energy grid capacity, €4.5 billion for water and €2 billion for low-carbon transport including Metrolink.
Departments then published sectoral investment plans setting out the capital projects to be prioritised from 2026 to 2030. These plans provide visibility of the delivery pipeline, giving construction firms the certainty they need to invest in hiring, training, and scaling their operations. This multi-year approach is designed to support industry planning and ensure that regional capacity can grow in line with demand. The plans include planned investment and projects across the country, including a range of projects and critical infrastructure works.
These sectoral plans are available on each Departmental webpage on the gov.ie website and will provide the Deputy with further detail on annual capital investment on a sectoral basis.
The key infrastructure across, electricity, water and transport, were further defined as critical infrastructure in the Accelerating Infrastructure Actions Report published last December.
To support the necessary reform, ongoing delivery and to mitigate against the wider economic context, I established a new Infrastructure Division last year to lead on the National Development Plan (NDP) review and the Accelerating Infrastructure work. Ensuring the Action Plan actions get delivered is the key work priority for 2026, in addition to ensuring critical NDP projects get progressed.
The Action Plan sets out 30 targeted actions grouped under four pillars, each addressing a key area of reform, with legal reform noted as a core element for accelerating critical infrastructure projects across the country. This work will, among other measures, include increasing exemption thresholds for critical infrastructure, reform processes with agencies and regulators, advocating for a new approach to legislation at EU level and creating a duty for state bodies to co-operate in making land available and accessible for critical infrastructure.
The delivery of these 30 actions under the four pillars is on track at the end of Q1 2026. The Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure is updated regularly on progress of Plan delivery. The Accelerating Infrastructure Taskforce (AIT) meet regularly to support the work on the Plan.
