Accelerating Infrastructure Action Plan: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-04 ============================================================ Mike Kennelly (FG), Labour Panel I welcome the Minister. I also welcome Mr. Pat Moylan, who, like me, is a former councillor. Having spent many years as a county councillor in Kerry, I know all about infrastructure and the Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan. Over the past number of years, we have not seen anything developing in rural Ireland. I wholeheartedly support this motion, which has been brought forward by Fianna Fáil. I call on the Minister to clearly outline how the Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan will be implemented in a way that directly addresses rural depopulation, especially in Kerry and similar counties. The Government’s report acknowledges that delays in delivery of critical infrastructure, water, wastewater, which I am going to really hone in on, energy transport and grid capacity are acting as structural constraints in the context of housing delivery and balanced regional development. In rural Kerry, the latter is not a policy theory; it is a lived reality. Villages in my area and all over Kerry, such as Astee, Duagh, Ballyduff, Abbeydorney, Kilflynn and Moyvane, will never see meaningful housing developments until infrastructure catches up. Young couples want to build, and families want to stay, but without serviced sites, wastewater upgrades, road improvements and co-ordinated planning between agencies, they cannot do so. When houses are not built, families leave. When families leave, schools, communities, and our churches struggle. Let us build them all back up fairly fast. It does not stop there. Recently, on RTÉ, Marty Morrissey highlighted the growing crisis of rural depopulation and its impact on the GAA. His reports showed clearly how demographic decline in rural Ireland is reaching crisis levels when it comes to participation in some areas. In particular, he highlighted south Kerry, which is a large area in which there are only 85 kids listed in primary schools for this year. Valentia Young Islanders GAA is a small community club that has struggled to field teams at times and that has had to consider amalgamation as a result of emigration and dwindling population. Dromid Pearses GAA is based on the Iveragh Peninsula, which is another area with very low underage numbers where adaptation and collaboration have become necessary just to keep teams going. This is the home club of our current Kerry senior manager, Jack O'Connor. Recently, I and a number of colleagues, including Senator Scahill, spoke with the president of the GAA, whose term is winding down. He said that his biggest fear is for rural clubs and rural communities. My promise to him that evening was to call on Uisce Éireann to invest in its infrastructure in order to allow for the building of homes in these rural areas. Marty Morrissey’s report did not attempt to list every club in Kerry that has been affected, because the problem is larger than any single parish. His focus was on the trend. That trend is unmistakable. Behind every struggling underage team is a simple fact: there are fewer young families living locally. This is where infrastructure and housing connect directly to community survival. If infrastructure delays prevent housing delivery in rural villages, then population decline will continue. If population declines, schools amalgamate, clubs have to merge, and communities are weakened. I welcome the Government's acknowledgement in the action plan that infrastructure delays are now a structural constraint in relation to housing supply and balanced regional development. We welcome the commitment to streamline decision-making, reduce the duplication in consenting processes, which is crazy, strengthen co-ordination between State agencies and enhance delivery capacity. For rural Kerry, this must translate into visible progress. Infrastructure-led housing delivery must mean that villages like those I mentioned - Astee, Duagh, Ballyduff, Abbeydorney, Kilflynn and Moyvane - are actively prioritised. I want regional balance; I do not want the cities or the towns getting any bigger. I want the rural areas to survive as well. Funding alone is not enough. As Senator Davitt mentioned, reform of the planning, legal, regulatory and procurement systems is essential if we are to see projects delivered in a timely way. If we fail to act decisively, we will continue to watch the slow erosion of rural life, with fewer houses built, fewer children in our classrooms and fewer jerseys on the pitches. I call on the Government to fully implement the Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan as a matter of urgency, to bring forward the necessary legislative reforms to improve co-ordination between State bodies and local authorities, to invest in and deliver capacity and to report regularly to this House on the measurable progress made. Rural Ireland does not lack spirit; it lacks enabling infrastructure. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-04/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-04