Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Stephen Collins: We need to treat the infrastructure crisis with the same urgency as the past jobs crisis

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One of the biggest challenges facing the country in the coming years barely rated a mention during the election campaign, even though it has the capacity to derail the economy and undermine the basis of prosperity for the next generation. The unspoken issue is the way that essential infrastructural development is being blocked because of a lengthy and complex planning system that places so many obstacles in the way of developments that are urgently required to serve the common good.

One symptom of the problem is the way so many housing projects are being delayed or even blocked by objections, often with the active support of some of the same politicians who shout most loudly about the need to tackle the housing crisis.

However, the problem goes far wider than housing. Essential improvements to the national grid have been delayed for more than a decade because of objections to pylons. Ireland’s geographical position puts us in an ideal position to become a huge generator and exporter of wind energy but unless the grid is developed to carry the electricity generated by wind, we will be passed out by other countries which don’t have anything like our potential.

Wind farms themselves have provoked hostility and even plans to build them out to sea have been delayed indefinitely by a variety of objections, some from individuals who have suddenly become experts on marine life.

The failure to move ahead with improvements to the electricity grid means that we are already close to capacity, so there is no way the country will be able to cope with the new data centres that will be required if we are going to reap the benefits of revolutionary artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Our single transferable system of proportional representation has many things to commend it, but one of its serious flaws is that it rewards politicians who pander to local considerations

The country’s current prosperity is based on the ability of past political leaders and public servants to create the conditions that made the country a magnet for the high-tech and pharmaceutical industries. We are now in real danger of putting ourselves out of the running to capitalise on the next phase of economic development.

At the core of the problem is a planning system that has long outlived its sell-by date and allows individuals to frustrate essential development on the merest whim. The fact that someone on the east coast would be able to halt a development in the west epitomises what is wrong with the system.

The new comprehensive Planning Act passed by the outgoing Government in its dying days was supposed to address the big problems in the system, but according to legal experts it will make little difference to the way the planning system operates.

As John McManus pointed out here recently, the abuse of the judicial review process as a means of objecting to essential infrastructure projects has got completely out of hand, with the courts agreeing to hear objections that, by any rational assessment, do not comply with the criteria for a judicial review. Fundamentally, though, it comes back to the political system and requires the Dáil to come up with clear rules and regulations which will give the courts guidance about what can and cannot be subject to judicial review.

It is no mystery why politicians are so reluctant to face up to the problem. The fact is that they respond to the concerns expressed by voters, often a tiny vocal minority, but nonetheless the kind of people who can mount a campaign that could threaten a TD’s seat. In the exit poll conducted by The Irish Times at the last general election it emerged that almost half of the electorate voted for the candidate they thought would put local issues ahead of national issues, while more than half expressed the view that the candidate was more important than the party.

Our single transferable system of proportional representation has many things to commend it, but one of its serious flaws is that it rewards politicians who pander to local considerations, even when they are clearly in conflict with the national interest. The UK faces similar problems in dealing with its housing crisis but Keir Starmer’s government has made it a priority to address the issue and reform the planning system so that the young generation is not held hostage by those who already own their homes.

The outgoing Government has tried to prioritise infrastructural development. Taoiseach Simon Harris has promised a new government department to deal with the issue. It is questionable whether a new department is the solution but the Taoiseach’s office needs to take control of the situation in the way Enda Kenny did with the jobs crisis of a decade ago.

Reform is never easy. The American writer and political reformer John Jay Chapman summed it up more than a century ago: “People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this; that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog.” Hopefully the next government will be brave enough to confront the problem even though it will involve telling the electorate some home truths.

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