The Government has published a new Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan, setting out 30 measures intended to reduce delays in the delivery of housing-enabling infrastructure, electricity networks, water services, public transport and roads. The plan, published by the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, is framed as a whole-of-government response to barriers that have slowed major project delivery in Ireland.
The report comes at a time of historically high capital investment. The Government says direct State capital spending is estimated at €17 billion in 2025 and more than €19 billion in 2026, with total expected capital investment of €275 billion to 2035. The updated National Development Plan Review, published in July 2025, also describes a total public investment programme of €275.4 billion, aimed at water, energy, transport, housing supply, living standards and competitiveness.
The central argument of the report is that funding alone will not be sufficient unless delivery systems are also changed. It says infrastructure project timelines have lengthened significantly, citing Uisce Éireann’s assessment that a small wastewater treatment project can take seven to ten years in Ireland, four to five years longer than similar projects in other EU Member States. ESB Networks is cited as saying that a basic electricity substation can now take five to six years, while more complex projects may take eight and a half years. Major road projects can have development cycles of up to 15 years.
The action plan is organised around four pillars: legal reform, regulatory reform and simplification, coordination and delivery reform, and public acceptance. The Government says the 30 measures are intended to address 12 barriers identified through earlier stakeholder consultation, including public acceptance, increased regulatory burden, risk aversion, rising judicial reviews, slow processes, inconsistent planning decisions, procurement challenges, funding uncertainty, and construction sector capacity.
A significant focus of the report is legal reform, particularly judicial review. The Government proposes reforms to reduce the number of judicial reviews, shorten timelines, reduce costs, and provide clearer thresholds for challenges to infrastructure decisions. One proposed measure is legislation to accelerate critical infrastructure and provide for emergency powers, including a statutory framework requiring state entities to prioritise decisions, licences, permits, consents or agreements for critical infrastructure projects.
The report also proposes a Civil Reform Bill to place judicial review on a statutory footing. According to the plan, this could allow Government to determine more clearly the circumstances in which judicial review procedures can be used. The report says possible reforms could include limiting judicial review to the final planning decision rather than allowing separate challenges to every licence, consent or planning condition, although the detailed legislative design remains to be developed.
Environmental assessment is another key area that has been indentified for reform. The action plan proposes clearer guidance for Environmental Impact Assessment and Appropriate Assessment, shorter and more focused documentation, and raised thresholds for triggering assessments where this is possible under EU law. The report states that reforms in this area will remain limited by EU legal requirements, but argues that clearer domestic rules could reduce complexity and shorten decision-making timelines.
The plan also includes measures to simplify the compulsory purchase order procedures, update consent procedures for road and rail projects to align with the Planning and Development Act 2024 and examine overlapping legislative provisions that affect infrastructure delivery. These proposals are intended to reduce procedural delays and improve alignment between planning, transport and land acquisition processes.
On regulation, the Government proposes a Regulatory Simplification Unit and national planning statements for critical infrastructure. It also plans reforms to processes applied by agencies and regulators, an early warning system for EU legislative change and stronger engagement with EU-level reform where legislation affects critical infrastructure delivery. The report presents these measures as part of an effort to reduce duplication, improve consistency, and avoid sequential processes where approvals could be run in parallel.
Procurement reform is also included. The report notes that public bodies delivering infrastructure must comply with EU Treaty principles, including equal treatment, transparency and proportionality. It says the Department is supporting reform of European procurement regulations to introduce greater flexibility, while also proposing further changes to Ireland’s Capital Works Management Framework in 2026. These include measures linked to modern methods of construction, design contests, early collaboration, alternative dispute resolution and inflation frameworks.
The action plan places infrastructure delivery within wider demographic and economic pressures. Census 2022 recorded 5,149,139 people in the State, an 8 percent increase since 2016 and the first time the population exceeded five million since the period before the Famine. The report also cites forthcoming ESRI research suggesting that Ireland’s population could grow by one third between 2015 and 2035, increasing pressure on housing, schools, transport, water and electricity systems.
Electricity infrastructure is presented as a major constraint and enabler. The report says the electricity network must expand to meet demand from population growth, economic development, and the electrification of heat, transport and industry. It cites EirGrid expectations of 3 percent annual demand growth over the next decade, with planning for a 45 TWh economy compared with current utilisation of around 33 TWh.
The electricity section also links grid delivery to climate targets. Ireland’s Climate Action Plan 2025 sets out a target for 80 percent of electricity demand to be met by renewable sources by 2030. The Government’s report says achieving this target will require the grid to carry at least 17 GW more renewable electricity, more than triple the level supported in 2020, and notes that renewable generation projects can often be developed more quickly than major transmission infrastructure.
The report highlights these challenges by using contrasting examples in differing consent processes. In the Batter Lane distribution project in Fingal, Dublin, ESB Networks submitted a planning application for a 38 kV substation to Fingal County Council in October 2023 and received permission within seven weeks. By contrast, a related 110 kV substation treated as Strategic Infrastructure Development required a 30-week pre-planning consultation phase and then 44 weeks from application to approval.
Water and wastewater infrastructure also feature prominently. The report says Ireland’s water and wastewater systems were built for a smaller population and are now being pushed to their limits. Uisce Éireann operates more than 750 water treatment plants, 1,000 wastewater treatment plants, 1,700 pumping stations, over 65,000 km of water network and 26,000 km of wastewater network. It supplies 1.7 billion litres of drinking water and treats 1.2 billion litres of wastewater daily.
The Government links water infrastructure directly to housing delivery. The report states that the 2025 National Development Plan Review commits €2 billion in equity funding to Uisce Éireann in 2025 to enable delivery of 300,000 additional homes by 2030. It also says investment in water and wastewater infrastructure under Revenue Control 4, covering 2025 to 2029, is expected to be approximately €11.9 billion.
Public acceptance is treated as a delivery issue rather than simply a communications issue. The report says statutory and non-statutory consultation are already part of infrastructure development, but argues that public understanding, transparent evidence and engagement with affected communities and landowners are needed to reduce resistance and avoid legal challenges or land access delays.
The final section of the plan focuses on accountability. Departments and agencies will be expected to report regularly on delivery, and the report states that requests for additional resources, sanctions or consents will only be progressed where satisfactory delivery of assigned actions is demonstrated. This creates a link between implementation of the action plan and future approvals or funding decisions.
The success of the plan will depend on how these measures are translated into legislation, administrative practice and project-level delivery. Several actions are scheduled for 2026, with the report stating that the 138 sub-actions are “substantively for delivery in 2026” and heavily weighted toward the first two quarters of the year.
The report’s direction is clear in that Government wants to move from high capital allocations to faster delivery. The more difficult test will be whether reforms can shorten timelines while maintaining environmental standards, legal rights, value for money and meaningful public participation. For housing, climate action, enterprise and regional development, that balance is likely to define the next phase of Ireland’s infrastructure debate.
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