Enabling critical infrastructure

In December 2025, the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation published The Accelerating Infrastructure Task Force Report and Action Plan. This Plan identifies some 30 actions to be taken to accelerate infrastructure delivery, write Mona Costelloe and Gráinne Murphy of Byrne Wallace Shields LLP.

One such action is the enactment of legislation to accelerate critical infrastructure, with the Plan envisaging the introduction of a Critical Infrastructure Act to create legal obligations on public bodies to accelerate key projects through planning, licensing, and other consenting stages.

The Government initiated the Critical Infrastructure Bill on 8 April 2026 and, ultimately, the Critical Infrastructure Act 2026 came into effect on 17 July 2026.

The purpose of the Act is to allow the Government to designate State-funded infrastructure projects as being of critical national importance and to accelerate the delivery of such designated projects by pushing them to the top of the ladder for speedier decision-making. The Act seeks to achieve this speedier decision-making by both imposing specific duties on the relevant public bodies and relieving them of certain existing duties when exercising their functions on designated critical infrastructure projects.

A project is designated by the Government following a recommendation by the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation. In so doing, the Minister must have regard to a number of matters including the need to ensure effective and efficient delivery of a project, and whether delays in the delivery of the project or a failure to deliver it could have adverse economic or social consequences for the State or might impact any other project. The designation order must be laid before the Dáil, and the Dáil may annul it within 21 sitting days.

Designation imposes a number of legal duties on relevant public bodies such as:

• prioritising the performance of their functions in relation to the critical infrastructure project over its other functions;
• acting in an expeditious manner and avoiding undue delays in the delivery of the project;
• reducing the time required for their authorisation processes to be completed;
• allocating appropriate administrative, technical, and decision-making resources;
• carrying out their functions in tandem with those being carried out by any other relevant public bodies; and
• cooperating with other public bodies on sequencing and risks.

Significantly, and in a move that appears to be a legislative reaction to the Supreme Court’s seminal decision in Coolglass Wind Farm v An Coimisiún Pleanála [2026] IESC 5 (in which Byrne Wallace Shields LLP acted for An Coimisiún Pleanála), the Act disapplies section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 for public bodies performing their functions in relation to designated projects.

Section 15 requires public and prescribed bodies to perform their functions, so far as practicable, in a way that is consistent with the national climate plans and strategies, the national climate objective, and the objectives of reducing emissions and adapting to climate change. In Coolglass, the Supreme Court stated that section 15 “applies to the functions of all relevant public bodies, and obliges such bodies to exercise those functions consistently with the climate objectives so far as possible”.

“This operates as a form of climate sense check, and to ensure that decisions and actions of public sector bodies are all aligned with the climate objectives.”

The evident purpose of disapplying section 15 to critical infrastructure projects is to reduce the potential scope of judicial review challenges to those projects, by removing potential grounds of challenge grounded on section 15. However, the disapplication of section 15 and the breadth of the discretion over designation may themselves be open to challenge.

To date, nine projects have been designated by the Government as critical infrastructure projects across the transport, water, and energy sectors including MetroLink, the Galway City Ring Road, the Greater Dublin Drainage Project, and the Cork Area Commuter Rail Programme. The Minister has advised that these projects are among the most significant investments currently being advanced by the State.

“The Act is a clear statement of political intent that infrastructure delivery is a national priority.”

Beyond the disapplication of section 15, existing domestic and EU planning and environmental law will continue to apply to a designated project. As noted in the Government press release announcing the designation of the nine projects, the typical capital project requires dozens of licences, permissions, and consents from a wide range of public bodies. Designation under the Act requires every public body involved in the approval process to accelerate the requisite licence, permission, and consent processes. It does not dictate specific decisions, but rather seeks to accelerate the decision-making process.

The Act is a clear statement of political intent that infrastructure delivery is a national priority. Its real test, however, will be practical rather than legal. Putting a project at the ‘top of the queue’ only helps if the relevant public bodies have the resources, expertise, and funding to act on that priority.

The Act leaves the substantive legal tests, planning appeals, and judicial review rules unchanged, so designated projects may still face legal challenges and delays. The Act itself may also face challenge. The broad and loosely defined discretion over designation, together with the disapplication of section 15, could both be tested in the courts.

Given the Supreme Court’s view in Coolglass that section 15 will rarely be decisive, the carve-out’s practical benefit may be modest. The first nine projects will show whether the Act delivers.

Mona Costelloe, Partner, Head of Planning, Environment, and Climate
T: +353 1 691 5606
E: mcostelloe@byrnewallaceshields.com

Gráinne Murphy, Partner, Planning, Environment, and Climate
T: +353 1 691 5485
E: gmurphy@byrnewallaceshields.com

Byrne Wallace Shields LLP has a dedicated National Development Plan Legal Service Office, a multidisciplinary offering designed to support the delivery of Ireland’s National Development Plan 2026-2035. For more information, visit: www.byrnewallaceshields.com