Mr. Aidan Sweeney:

On co-ordination and delivery, and where Ireland ranks internationally, we need to be consistently investing in not just the projects but in the delivery structures and getting those right, whether this involves the procurement officials, the planners or having the right skills at all the different levels. There are bottlenecks right across the system that are going to impact our ability to deliver. If we were to look at the example of the MetroLink project for Dublin, the delivery body to deliver that project will almost be double the size of Transport Infrastructure Ireland. I refer to the management co-ordination aspect. Big projects will need to have resources for a particular purpose and we need to be looking at this element. If we were to draw a conclusion about how we deliver infrastructure in Ireland, we have had many examples of motorway projects and big transport projects that have been delivered quite effectively over the years. We need to get back to that. We also need to look at how some of our commercial semi-States and that mind set, and how they deliver their projects.

We are seeing that part of the problem we have - and brings us back to the European benchmarking - are the examples of the regulatory challenges we have, how we navigate them and the time it takes to navigate them. Let us take wind turbines as an example, and this came from the Draghi report. Ireland is actually taking 50% longer than most European countries for an onshore wind farm. Essentially, it is nine years, whereas the likes of Finland, for example, can do it in two to three years - a country that has to navigate the same regulatory regimes as we have. It is, therefore, about our approach to how we do this. We need to be looking at how we creatively look at how the projects are throughout the procurement process, getting the multi-annual budget approvals, how we sanction these projects, having a clear and well prioritised national development plan, and then right through to tackling the planning and permitting system and recognising that each interacts with the other. An example would be a problem where something going through the planning system may take three or four years and then it has to go to get an EPA licence, with that taking another two or three years. The question is when it will be actually possible to get to put a shovel in the ground.

This is the sort of process we are talking about. I will speak about what we want to do. We need to say at the outset - and this is part of why we are talking about a co-ordinating entity - that there is a need to walk through a project, look at all the milestones it needs to get through and design the system around that. It should not just be about the point of view of the regulator in terms of its efficiency perspective. It is fine if it hits a year's timeline, but they must all be added together. We then suddenly see what the lead-in time is for delivering a project. Our core approach to this issue is looking at and understanding it from the perspective of our ability to deliver a project. This leads us back to accountability and all those other issues. I refer to having clear and measurable goals. The Planning and Development Act 2024 refers to an aim to get to 48 weeks to get a large project through the planning system, but not all projects, critical infrastructure projects, can go straight to the board. They go to the local authorities first and then may be referred to the planning board. There is a need for clear, strategic and sectoral guidance, whether this is for national aviation policy, the rail network, ports or whatever, to guide projects and determine that these are national strategic projects. This should give as much instruction as possible to those regulators to make those decisions in a timely manner. This is where we need the clarity of that sort of direction too.

On the national development plan and the ability to attract people to return to Ireland to work on projects, we would like to see the marketing of projects internationally but also marketing with respect to the skills required for the projects. It is a case of considering the two because, for some large projects, we will need international companies to come here to help with construction, although we will be looking to local supply chains and skills. We need to market for both the projects and the skills.