Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

Private wires are an essential part of developing the wider need on energy and digital infrastructure. What I was about to say was that some of the lengthy development cycles and regulatory complexity and fragmentation across regulatory bodies is extremely problematic. Too much uncertainty and delay is driven by legal, planning and consenting processes. There is also the issue of capacity concerns in the public and private sectors, as well as the lack of realistic and specific State project pipelines. Additionally, there is some insufficient public acceptance of critical infrastructure to grow our economy.

On the direct point made by the Deputy concerning north Dublin, social infrastructure is obviously part of our wider capital allocation that we advance. It is then a matter for each Department to prioritise the social infrastructure in respect of different communities. We have significant programmes across the State, whether in sports capital, the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht or, indeed, other parts of the Government that provide for significant social infrastructure across the State. Part of the national development plan will be to continue this over the period.

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