Strategic Infrastructure
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-16
============================================================

Jack Chambers (FF), Dublin West

There are a few changes being made. I referenced the infrastructure guidelines earlier, and that is an important change. They will save significant time and they have already advanced. Separately, we are seeking to put in place a standardised template on business case development. We know a business case can take a short time with particular agencies and utilities but, in certain instances, it drifts into years. The wider public discussion often focuses on judicial reviews and reforms in that space - we need to advance that reform - but there is also a lot of time wasted at the early phase of a project around concept design. That is why the National Development Finance Agency is being stood up. It is broadening its remit to reduce the time at all elements of the project lifecycle.
The Critical Infrastructure Bill will also help fast-track projects through the respective permitting, licensing and approval processes. The infrastructure task force is already bringing about reforms and changes to some of the regulatory functions that exist within regulators in respect of how they deliver infrastructure and how their processes need to be reformed to better enable infrastructure delivery.

---

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/dail/2026-04-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-16