Northern Ireland faces a critical infrastructure deficit that is holding back competitiveness and quality of life.
Yet, despite mounting delays and constrained budgets, we continue to avoid one of the most effective tools available: private sector investment.
So why has private finance fallen out of favour?
The reality is that our politicians have stepped away from seeing it as a viable solution. Concerns about past models, ideological resistance, and fear of public backlash have created a policy vacuum – one that leaves projects stalled and communities waiting.
But avoiding private finance altogether is not a strategy; it’s a barrier to progress. The question we must now ask is: can we afford to keep saying no?
Recent reports have laid bare the scale of our infrastructure deficit. The Department of Health has paused the construction of a much-needed children’s hospital unit pending a capital review.
The A6 road upgrade, Glider Phase 2, school estate renewal, and the Living With Water programme have all been delayed or scaled back due to affordability concerns.
The school estate renewal in Northern Ireland has been impacted by affordability concerns (Danny Lawson/PA)
These are not minor inconveniences, but missed opportunities to improve lives, unlock economic growth, and deliver better public services.
And yet, the private sector is ready and willing to invest in Northern Ireland. One infrastructure investment firm has publicly stated that it cannot invest locally due to the absence of viable projects that consider private funding.
This is a missed opportunity.
There are funds ready to be mobilised and invested in our infrastructure but we don’t have the appetite to unlock this.
We need to change this. We need to ask: what would it take to unlock private investment in a way that is affordable, protects public interest, accelerates delivery, and improves outcomes?
How could we do this?
Let’s take the Glider service as a case in point. For a relatively modest investment, Translink and the Department for Infrastructure transformed Belfast’s former Metro corridors with the introduction of Glider.
Today, over seven million people travel annually on a more accessible, inclusive, and efficient form of public transport. It’s a success story by any measure but, importantly, it generates more revenues than it costs.
Yet Glider Phase 2 remains stalled. Despite its proven popularity and profitability, the project has been paused due to funding shortfalls.
If we were willing to leverage its profitability to attract private sector finance we could move forward with its delivery and significantly reduce the requirement for public funding.
We could then potentially release the £40 million currently ring-fenced for the project back into other urgent priorities such as the children’s hospital.
This isn’t about privatising the service. It’s about leveraging private sector willingness to support infrastructure delivery in a way that allows us to do more, faster, and better.
It’s about using the right funding model for the right project, while keeping ownership, control, and accountability firmly in public hands.
In fact, Northern Ireland could go further. The Department could revisit extending Glider Phase 2 into Glengormley and Carryduff, two major population centres that would benefit significantly from improved connectivity.
With the right funding approach, we could deliver greater benefits to more citizens, without waiting for a future budget that may never arrive
What’s happening elsewhere?
It’s imperative that we begin to think differently. Across the border, the Irish Government, despite running budget surpluses, continues to use private finance to support infrastructure investment.
The upcoming Metrolink project in Dublin is an example of how private sector involvement can be used strategically and effectively.
Meanwhile, the UK Government’s upcoming budget is unlikely to deliver transformational sums to the Northern Ireland Executive.
That means we must begin thinking early in a project’s lifecycle about whether it can be funded differently, with support from the private sector, to release constrained public funding and continue delivering for our citizens.
We often think of infrastructure finance in binary terms, either fully public or fully private, but successful projects like London’s Crossrail show there’s a more flexible middle ground.
Successful projects like London’s Crossrail show there’s a more flexible middle ground
While not delivered through a traditional PPP, Crossrail was funded using a blend of central government investment, business rate supplements, developer contributions, and future passenger revenues. This hybrid approach enabled delivery at scale while keeping the infrastructure publicly owned and operated.
Northern Ireland could adopt similar mechanisms, tailored to our context. Whether through availability-based contracts, value capture, co-investment, or other hybrid models, the key is to think pragmatically about how we fund infrastructure.
It’s not about ideology, it’s about using the right tools to unlock stalled projects and deliver better outcomes for our citizens.
Of course, any use of private finance must be carefully designed, transparently governed, and rigorously assessed for value for money. But that’s not a reason to avoid it altogether. It’s a reason to do it well.
We need to be clear that private finance does not equal privatisation. Modern partnership models allow the public sector to retain ownership and control while transferring specific risks, such as construction, maintenance, or availability, to those best placed to manage them.
Chris McLean, infrastructure & government deal advisory director at KPMG (Kelvin Boyes)
Done right, these models can deliver infrastructure faster, in an affordable way, securing earlier and better outcomes for the people of Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland has the talent, the need, and the opportunity to deliver world-class infrastructure. We need to support our infrastructure partners to consider all the tools available to us. It’s time to change. It’s time to fund our infrastructure differently.
- Chris McLean is infrastructure & government deal advisory director at KPMG