Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

That is why we have corrected that around having over 5% GNI* allocated for critical infrastructure, which is one of the highest levels of infrastructure investment across EU counterparts. It did not take any article in any newspaper for me to prioritise infrastructure delivery. Since the brief was allocated to my Department, we have stood up a task force, developed an evidence base and published the report in July on the evidence base, which is now informing the various reforms which we will introduce and set out in the coming weeks. That is about cutting unnecessary processes within government and the State. We have a complicated structure of regulation in our economy which needs simplification, and not only at EU level. We need to prioritise domestic simplification and reform to do things quicker, to develop and facilitate economic growth and, ultimately, to deliver infrastructure quicker and build more homes. That is the central metric which will underpin all the work on infrastructure. We will set out the detail around that when it is published in the coming weeks.

See this speech in context