The Irish Academy of Engineering was invited to attend the launch of the Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan in Government buildings. The stakeholder event was opened by Minister Jack Chambers and Academy President Sean Finlay and Special Advisor Tom Leahy attended the event.
Sean Finlay & Minister Jack Chambers
The Overall report Findings were:
- Delivery model underperforming despite record funding.
- Barriers occur sequentially, increasing time and cost.
- Confidence eroded across communities and investors.
The consequence in practice were :
- Flood Relief: 4-year delays, towns flood, costs rise
- Offshore wind: sequential approvals add years
- Grid delivery:14% wind,7% solar curtailed in 2024
- Housing Enablement: thousands of homes stalled
- Master planning gaps and adversarial contracting inflate costs.
The Action plan sets out 30 headline actions grouped into 4 key pillars:
Pillar 1 – Legal Reform
Pillar 2 – Regulatory reform and Simplification
Pillar 3 – Coordination and Delivery reforms
Pillar 4 – Public acceptance.
Over the lasts 9 months the Academy have been very active in proposing solutions and presenting to the Joint Oireachtas committee on Infrastructure and NDP Delivery in October 2025 and has recently made a detailed submission on opportunities to use existing EU Law to bring the principles of EU common good law into Irish Legislation. The EU law report was well received by the Accelerating Infrastructure Task Force(AITF), who will remain in place for the next 2 years to track delivery of the 30 headline actions.
The Academy will continue to actively support the delivery of this plan
All our reports are available free of charge on our website www.iae.ie .
Academy news bulletin 11 December 2025- Academy at launch of Infrastructure plan