Perché la consegna di infrastrutture vitali è così lenta in Irlanda?

Without reading it I’ll say far too much admin, no-one tasked to oversee specific projects from initial design stage to completion. Plans being tweaked and more after the work has begun. Legal challenges which are not heard quickly enough.

Having worked in a very important aerostructure manufacture, I can tell you it’s all about adhering to specific requirements and guidelines. There has been a road which the train station is on in my town… It took 4 years to renovate this road and recently it reopened.

Governments will change things on a whim and expect the best competitive tender at the cheapest end of the budget as possible. This will lead to problems to contractors and people who eventually do the work.

1.) Planning and processing:

Plans have to meet local council guidelines, get their approval as well as potentially dept of local gov, an Comisiún Pleanála, and potentially a legal challenge, at each stage there’s is a level of discretion afforded to the assessor. By the time ground is broken, its already behind schedule and overbudget.

2.) Poor oversight:

Opaque PPPs with no clear direction from public bodies leaves contractors often dealing with changing circumstances and plans, all the while looking for premiums and in full knowledge that there are only a handful of large-scale competition for gov contracts. Also, once a job has started there’ll be little or no push-back on expenses. Not to say they’re necessarily scamming taxpayers, but there’s certainly no incentive to worry about rising costs or deadlines.

3.) Lack of experience within public bodies:

When Spain built their high-speed rail network, they did it all at once and as time went on, the more the projects, the more was learnt from issues that had arisen. Because there aren’t the actual experts in construction actually within gov depts or councils, rather all physical works are outsourced, we learn every hard lesson again everytime there’s a new project.

Solutions? Hey we’ll solve everything in a Reddit comment section, right? but for the craic here’s a few ideas:

1.) Simplify the planning permission process:

I’d argue that local councils should have the final say, I don’t see why we need a national quango to carry out additional assessments. Put limits on judicial reviews, higher bar for grounds of a legal challenge.

2.) Centralised management:

Instead of a body that assesses after the fact, a specific gov dept or body that sets minimum requirements and directly manages state infrastructure projects. Who actually is overseeing the childrens hospital and why would we assume that there’s anyone in the HSE or dept of health that knows how to put up a building? One body that keeps the staff and experience would be better equiped for large-scale infrastructure projects.

3.) Actually build public infrastructure:

OPW aside, the government does not build anything, really; they outsource at a premium. If there was salaried builders, plumbers, electricians, architects, qs’s, etc., then you’d creating stable jobs, and ensuring proper oversight and expertise. We can be angry at BAM but they’re following the terms of their contract and there’s not a huge amount of competition, what exactly are they meant to be held accountable for?