Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-20 ============================================================ Joe Conway (IND), Cultural and Educational Panel I welcome the Minister to the Chamber. I have not been in his company since the opening of the New Ross greenway, when he and I were both blown away by the gush of lovely Gaeilge that came out of the mouth of the imam. It was marvellous to realise how multicultural and inclusive our country is when we had such lovely Gaeilge being uttered in our presence by the imam of, I presume, New Ross. I am looking at the, in many ways, very inspiring legislation before us. In the early days of this Seanad, we had a very good debate on planned regional expansion that would give a balance to the development of the country and ensure that development does not just happen in big urban areas. The one fear that I have is that the significant infrastructural developments will be centred around Dublin - the capital city - and other major conurbations. That is going to allow for the divide between rural Ireland and urban areas in which there is obvious prosperity to develop further. Another thing that I worry about is the short-term nature of the election cycles in the country. There are four or five years, if we are lucky, between elections. That gives rise to some degree of short-termism in decision-making. I hope that is not something which will have a mal-effect on the proposed legislation, because, as I think we would all agree, meileann muilte Dé go mall; things grind slowly with our infrastructure. That is not to our credit. I would love to see the legislation, as is the intention, speed up the delivery of things. A few moments ago, I took the opportunity to look at the per capita figures for wealthy nations. The 2025 figures list Ireland as the fourth wealthiest country in the world per capita . If that is the case, why does it not feel like it a lot of the time? Admittedly, it does not come within the ambit of this legislation, but we have a housing crisis. I drive up the M7 and M9 every week. These interconnected motorways are a God's gift to people in the south east, but the road surface means that they do no longer feel like modern motorways. By and large, I am minded to support this legislation without discussing it in any great detail with my Independent colleagues. I am looking forward to seeing the significance and cogency of the amendments that will be put forward. I will give them due thought and consideration. We would all agree that infrastructural development in this country needs impetus and needs to be the subject of vigilance. There is one paragraph that I was very pleased to see. It states that chief executives of local authorities must submit their reports to the elected members of those authorities and seek their views and that the elected members may decide to attach recommendations that must be included in the report to the board. If what I have just stated is wrong, I stand open to correction. Like Senator Boyhan, I was involved in local government. Local authority members should be consulted. If they are not, then náire ar an Rialtas. --- 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/2026-05-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-20