‘We’ve dropped the ball’: Ireland’s housing targets will be missed because the water, electricity and roads required can’t be delivered – The Irish Times

by WickerMan111

35 comments

  1. If only there is something the government can do about Public Infrastructure. Oh well. Let’s try again next year. They’ll make it this time.

    /S

  2. So, why can’t they be delivered? Have you tried delivering them considering infrastructure is your direct responsibility?

  3. I wonder how many of those works were turned down because of planning permission objections. 

  4. Not “can’t”, it’s “won’t” – by choice.

  5. This is the biggest issue the State faces. The complete and utter inability / refusal to make whatever changes are necessary- legal, constitutional etc – to build the infrastructure needed.

    We are going to run out of water in the rainiest country in Europe!

    We can’t build enough windmills in the windiest country in Europe!

    We can’t even build a rail line from the airport never mind a metro.

    It’s so frustrating and now that I am heading towards 60 I know I will never see these things done.

    (I know we are not the absolute rainiest or windiest)

  6. Do they actually achieve anything? Is there any proper planning ahead & forecasting…Metrolink not even given the go ahead yet…traffic getting heavier & heavier with no alternative. People paying more & more for less…

  7. Ireland is a wealthy country still stuck in the 60s  when it comes to bureaucracy 

  8. They are really really good at making up excuses for their complete failure on housing in the last decade

  9. And all of this while we have enormous surpluses that will defo not last. I suppose there’s a faint possibility that they intend to do the infrastructure building during the next recession (which is the economic advice, build in a recession, spend less in a boom) but I have zero trust in them and we’ve needed this stuff since well before the surpluses

  10. The lack of joined up thinking is staggering. And it’s been going on for years.

    How many times do we see infrastructure needing to be upgraded retrospectively in Ireland. Oops we built loads of houses, now we need bigger roads and maybe some bus lanes… shock!

    Look at cheerywood in South Dublin..all of that was given the go ahead without any traffic assessment. Now the M50 there is a car park half the time.

    Build the infrastructure first.

  11. Complaints about the planning process and legal framework are getting more common. A lot more common and yet the government’s planning bill that passed just before the election last year is already considered not enough.

    In the UK there is a lot of a talk about the need simplify the planning process especially for infrastructure. New York and California both very wealthy states are hitting problems with cost about delivering infrastructure and the planning/legal process around it is getting a lot of blame. Their approach is similar to ours appartently.

    Changing the planning process significantly in Ireland will be politically charged, as there is zero chance of getting agreement even within parties. All politicians want to be stop some development, even members of SF and (well former) of the Green have acknowledged the need to speed up the planning process for certain projects.

    But so many of these problems were predicted years ago, everyone knew the population was growing. Simon Coveny made a huge speech about needing to prepare for the growing while minister for housing and then did nothing about it. There is a serious lack of long term thinking in Ireland not even planning, thinking from our senior civil servants and politicians.

  12. Can’t be delivered or just weren’t thought about at the time of design.

    Mark my words. We’ll look back on this planning time in 20 years with our heads in our hands.

    Simple. Build tall in the city. Anything outside the city center should be a house.

  13. I would fire everyone in the government if I could.

  14. It’s quite an achievement to write an article that long about housing and infrastructure failings without even one mention of FF nor FG.

  15. Do the govt not understand we need More. More of everything: houses; water infrastructure; motorways; bus drivers; train services; GPs – everything. It’s all related. We need more of everything, it’s also relevant to staving off anti-immigrant people, they’re pissed we don’t have enough. We need more!

  16. Now we’re getting to one of the main reasons why they fail to provide housing. No serviced sites by government or councils due to lack of foresight, lack of planning and greed.

  17. Never had the ball to drop in the first place, that ball was booted into the ditch and is flat, filled with slurry water and a very different colour than it started out with!

  19. >“In Ireland one person anywhere on the island can take a judicial review,” he says. “Given the vociferous opposition we have to the pipe in certain areas down in Tipperary, we probably would expect it.”

    That’s probably something that needs to be fixed as well. Having one random person being able to derail an infrastructure project serving thousands is not a good thing.

  22. >‘We’ve dropped the ball’

    Who’s the collective “we” the author refers to?

  23. The reason that water, electricity, and roads are so difficult is because Ireland insists on building housing sprawled out in the middle of nowhere.

    If Ireland was able to understand high density housing it would understand that it doesn’t need to trail massive infrastructure projects all over the country. But sadly we don’t.

  24. The mountain of tax we pay and we get fuck all for it. Insane the basics are not taken care of.

  25. It’s not the only reason. We’ve multiple choke points. One is services,. One is planning. The biggest is probably manpower. Nothing is getting solved until we have the people to make it happen. Government in fairness have been running campaigns overseas to attract workers, but given the problems that already exist and the fact this is a global issue, we need to do more. Until we solve the manpower issues, we can’t expect anything else to get resolved any time soon.

  29. 40 data centers have planning permission. 200M for expanding the Cork airport. Ireland belongs to the tech companies and consultancies.

  30. As I’ve said in another thread recently, is this the point where we just admit we’re hopeless and hand over control to the Dutch or another competent country in mainland Europe.

  31. Maybe we do away with the criminal like Apprentices wage. (Barely covers the cost of travel and eating on the job)

    Give them a minimum wage or more, that might entice a few more people to join the industry.

  32. It still baffles me how we have the opposite of joined up thinking when it comes to infra. Take mahon point in cork. Loads of commercial buildings going in year after year, and the road in and out hasn’t been upgraded since dsy 1. It’s getting progressively worse and worse to pass through every year, but nothing being done. Would it kill them ton add another slip road on/off, or fix the main junction that slows everything up? It’ll be done eventually when it’s an absolute nightmare, but only then and not before. It’s sad we pay so much in tax and get fuck all back for it 

  34. Nice that the news has caught up with what most people have noticed already. Anyone I know going into new builds has to wait months longer because of this stuff.

  35. Politicians are all liars. They tell you what you want to hear and then they are gone. In the last election was it 100000 houses gonna be built they were promising. Lies.

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