Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-16 ============================================================ Jack Chambers (FF), Dublin West I thank the Senators for their contributions. As I outlined on Second Stage in this House, I firmly believe that, if we are serious about accelerating Ireland's critical infrastructure, the disapplication of section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 is necessary. There has been a great deal of misinformation about the purpose and impact of this change. The amendment is included in the Bill because recent precedent has made it clear that the courts have interpreted section 15 in a manner that means that every decision made by a public body is exposed to an inherently subjective assessment of whether that body has had sufficient regard to a wide range of climate policies and strategies in any decision it makes on a project. This creates an additional avenue for judicial review and will ultimately delay the development and delivery of projects and programmes. This runs counter to the key aim of this legislation, which is to accelerate the decision-making process. Action 6 of the Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan calls for the Government to be responsive to legal precedent that has the potential to delay critical infrastructure. It is our responsibility to address such challenges through legislation to ensure they do not impede the delivery of infrastructure our country needs. I also wish to be very clear that I recognise that judicial reviews may serve an important purpose. I have previously referenced the key role they play in ensuring that decisions taken are lawful, transparent, fair and accountable, that they adhere to the principles of legality and proper procedure, and that they are rational. However, if we are genuinely seeking urgency and speed in the delivery of critical infrastructure, as legislators, we cannot abdicate responsibility for key aspects of decision-making to the courts. It is fundamentally the duty of Government, as the elected representatives of the people, rather than individual agencies or the courts, to determine the mix of capital investment that needs to be adopted to provide for the needs of our population in a manner consistent with our climate obligations. The inclusion of this provision is a practical response to reduce one avenue of risk of delay to those projects that are designated as critical. There are absolutely no other impacts on climate policy, domestic and international climate commitments, or, as commentators have pointed out, other requirements to consider the climate and environmental characteristics of a project. I reiterate that this change does not mean that projects will not be subject to climate and environmental assessments. These will still take place as part of the development process for these initiatives. Every Exchequer-funded project is already required to measure and price its greenhouse gas emissions under the infrastructure guidelines. That provides an important incentive to minimise emissions where it is cost-effective to do so. Similarly, every individual project is also required to undergo a climate adaptation assessment to ensure it does not give rise to undue risks. All other climate and environmental obligations will still apply. Disapplying section 15 merely reduces the scope for one avenue of judicial review. The inclusion of section 7 is therefore vital if this Bill is to be a success. Senator Murphy will be aware of the A5, where we have seen the complicated outworking of climate legislation through the courts. I was in Monaghan and Donegal last week and everyone from the Border communities was speaking to me about that particular project. We had a good North-South meeting with our colleagues in the Executive on the challenges arising from the court's interpretation and how it has ended up in a convoluted assessment through the courts, again undermining a critical project for the North and for North-South connectivity. That is an example of the unintended consequences of legislation. I do not believe the court's interpretation reflects how that legislation was drafted. We have an obligation to respond to legal precedent to ensure that such disapplication occurs where we want to drive delivery. That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to provide a clarified path for projects through the delivery process, rather than opening another avenue for judicial reviews, which are being weaponised here and in other jurisdictions. --- 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/2026-06-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:03+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-16