Accelerating Infrastructure Action Plan: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-04
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Alison Comyn (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach

I welcome the Minister, and I welcome the publication of the accelerating infrastructure action plan, with its focus on delivering infrastructure across electricity, water and transport. The identification of those four strategic pillars and 30 targeted actions shows the scale of the challenge facing us when it comes to ensuring that essential infrastructure keeps pace with population growth and development. This plan is therefore very welcome and a necessary step.
Across the country, we are seeing the pressures that arise when housing, population growth and economic development move faster than the infrastructure needed to support them. In my county of Louth, these challenges are becoming increasingly evident. We are experiencing unprecedented levels of housing development across Drogheda, mid-Louth and north Louth. Our new housing is very welcome and badly needed, but the reality on the ground is that the infrastructure required to support these communities is often lagging far behind. People are moving into these beautiful new homes in brand new estates without the roads, schools, childcare facilities and public transport that allow communities to function and thrive.
Key strategic projects, such as the port access northern cross route on the north side of Drogheda, remain essential if we are to manage the growing traffic numbers and support the continued development of the town. Likewise, the delivery of a second railway station for the northern Drogheda environs is critical if we are serious about improving transport connectivity for one of the fastest growing urban areas in the country.
Water and wastewater infrastructure is creating real constraints on development in other parts of the county. In Haynestown near Dundalk, Uisce Éireann has been involved in infrastructure planning around Reynoldstown village in Haggardstown. Planning permission was granted last year for a range of new services that residents in the area had been calling for many years now. These include a new supermarket, a large medical centre, a chemist, a restaurant and a substantial childcare facility. This development was intended to serve a growing population and community of more than 2,000 people while also helping to relieve some of the pressure on nearby Blackrock, which has experienced significant population growth in recent years. Despite planning permission being granted last year, however, progress on these projects has ground to a halt because the necessary wastewater infrastructure is not in place. Late last year, it was confirmed to the planning authority that the Blackrock wastewater treatment plant did not have the capacity to cater for additional proposed developments.
That capacity constraint has already had real consequences. It has led to refusals for housing projects, including an 80-home development and a separate plan for 91 houses in the area. The area is also in dire need of a new secondary school for its growing population.
Even in my own part of the county, we are seeing the strain on infrastructure in other parts. In Termonfeckin in Clogher Head, residents are experiencing serious water pressure issues because the existing water pipes are no longer adequate to serve the level of development already there, never mind what is coming down the line. Those pipes need to be replaced. In the meantime, the existing households are seeing their water pressure being affected as new homes continue to be added to the network.
These are just practical, everyday examples of what happens when infrastructure does not keep pace with development. If we are serious about delivering housing at the scale required, infrastructure must be delivered alongside it at the same pace, not years after people have already moved into their new communities.
For counties like Louth and countless others across the country, the success of the accelerating infrastructure action plan will ultimately be measured not by the strategies or pillars set out on paper, but by whether we see projects being delivered on the ground in the timeframe that our communities desperately need. Our towns and villages right across the country are growing rapidly, and that growth must be matched by the infrastructure that allows communities to live, work and raise their families with the services they so richly deserve.

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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