On Tuesday (27 January), the Irish Government launched a new central service within the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) to help move major public projects through development more quickly, as pressure continues to build over delays to housing, transport and other infrastructure. Announced this week by the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, the service is intended to give departments earlier and more consistent access to project expertise, with officials suggesting it could cut up to a year from development timelines for complex schemes.
Under the new arrangement, the NDFA will provide hands-on support across project appraisal, procurement strategy, governance and delivery planning, reducing the need for repeated external procurement. The first projects expected to use the service include the redevelopment of the General Post Office and the National Concert Hall, both of which have spent extended periods in pre-construction stages.
A system struggling to deliver
The move comes against the backdrop of long-running problems in Ireland’s infrastructure delivery system. The Government’s Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan, published in late 2025, set out a detailed diagnosis of why major projects stall, pointing to regulatory complexity, fragmented responsibilities across agencies and slow decision-making at key stages. Independent analysis has reinforced those findings. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has warned that Ireland’s infrastructure stock, covering housing, transport, energy and health, remains well below that of comparable high-income European countries, arguing that the issue is not simply funding levels but the State’s capacity to turn capital allocations into completed projects within a reasonable timeframe. These constraints are visible across sectors, from major transport schemes such as BusConnects and DART Underground to housing developments delayed by the slow roll-out of enabling infrastructure such as water, wastewater and transport links.
Reform plans already on the table
Ministers have made repeated commitments to address these bottlenecks, particularly as housing shortages and grid constraints have become central political and economic issues. As part of that broader reform agenda, the Government has explored changes to planning and judicial review processes, arguing that legal and procedural delays have too often pushed major projects off schedule. The NDFA service sits alongside another recent initiative: the establishment of a Joint Utilities and Transport Clearing House, which Minister Jack Chambers briefed Cabinet on last week. That forum brings together utilities, transport bodies and local authorities to deal with coordination problems early, particularly where projects depend on multiple connections or overlapping works, with the aim of resolving practical obstacles before construction begins.
Business groups and policy bodies have consistently warned that slow infrastructure delivery is starting to weigh on Ireland’s competitiveness. The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council has argued that delays to housing, transport and energy projects risk undermining investment decisions and labour supply at a time when other countries are moving faster. The new NDFA service will not resolve those challenges on its own, but it marks a more practical approach to project development, focusing less on headline commitments and more on how projects actually move through the system. Whether that translates into homes built sooner and infrastructure delivered on time will depend on how consistently the model is applied across departments, and whether the wider reform agenda follows through.
