Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-20
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Nessa Cosgrove (LAB), Labour Panel

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. We all want infrastructure delivered quickly but we as the Labour Party think that the Government has misdiagnosed the problem. This Bill seeks to blame environmental law for the Government's own failings by suspending section 15 of the climate action Act for particular projects. The Government is now abandoning any pretence that our biodiversity, environment or climate should play any role in deciding what we see to be critical infrastructure in this country and whether particular projects proceed. The Bill is effectively putting the duty on public bodies not to comply with the climate action Act in order to meet our climate goals. This was not recommended in the Accelerating Infrastructure report and was not required in this Bill. It removes the duty of public bodies to do that. We believe this is unconstitutional. It is harking back to the monarchs of the late 1600s. In 1690, the Bill of Rights came in to get rid of the monarchs overseeing and deciding whatever they wanted.
This Bill is wrong. We all want to agree with critical infrastructure developments, but we as a party believe that infrastructure projects were not delivered under this current Government and have not been delivered for years because of no long-term strategic planning and a lack of resourcing of our State bodies, planning authorities, local authorities and courts. We are disappointed that members of the Opposition, who we hoped would actually support us in the Dáil, actually voted for this Bill. We hope we have an opportunity in the Seanad now to go through this and that the Minister will accept some of our amendments. The children's hospital has been delayed 19 times, but that is nothing to do with environmental law. It is absolutely nothing to do with the judicial reviews either. It is to do with the failure for strategic planning. The same could be said of offshore wind. The Government has been talking about the development of offshore wind for 30 years. The new project that is going through the planning process at the moment on the east coast will not even happen until 2030 due to the failure to plan adequately.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-20