Capital Expenditure Programme
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-12
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Jack Chambers (FF), Dublin West

We have taken every step in the infrastructure life cycle and tried to cut time. The Deputy referenced transport and water. We have the joint utilities and transport clearing house. That reflects those key sectors which build the foundations of any community in terms of water, energy and transport infrastructure. Improving co-ordination in how that wider infrastructure is delivered is part of that objective. All the utilities are involved in that, including Eirgrid and the ESB in the context of infrastructure.
We will advance the critical infrastructure Bill, which will help set the prioritisation and political direction for the Government and the Oireachtas around particular projects. That could be in advance of projects going into the planning process. With some of the projects that are in the planning process, the wider risk when they leave it is that licensing and consents are sometimes required. We are reforming that area so we can deliver some of them in parallel. The risk of judicial review also hangs over a lot of projects. The reforms we will advance this year in the context of judicial reviews are to try to deal with that issue. One of the major issues when a project receives permission is whether it can actually start it if there is a threat of judicial review. My colleagues and I are also advancing that reform.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-12