Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-16
============================================================

Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

I move amendment No. 8:
In page 7, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following:
“ Report on permitting process
9 . The Minister shall, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, lay a report before Dáil Éireann on the feasibility of streamlining permitting processes for large infrastructure projects, so as to identify what permits can be applied for concurrently in order to save time and reduce costs.”.
The permitting process, instead of improving in recent years, has only got worse. It can take years to get all of the permits in order, such is the nature of the sequential system of permitting processes that we currently have in place, by which time the costs of procurement have often risen or survey data has aged out of use. The system is a real barrier to delivering infrastructure for who could be willing to deal with such an archaic and dogmatic system? It really makes no sense. Where possible, the system must allow for certain permits and licences to be applied simultaneously as opposed to consequentially. This would streamline the overall system, promoting efficiency and saving time and money on major infrastructure projects. This amendment seeks to put in place a reporting mechanism to provide an update on the progress within that.

---

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