Capital Expenditure Programme
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-12
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Jack Chambers (FF), Dublin West

On Deputy Connolly's first point, this is removing an unnecessary middle step which was adding time. The critical points are approval of the preliminary business case, which sets the political direction for a project to be advanced with prospective capital spend, and final approval for a contract award, which involves the respective Minister. Again, it removes a middle step which did not provide value and just added time. This is what is being changed.
In terms of transport and water projects, we will have a regulatory simplification unit to look at the wider regulatory landscape where we have duplication of approvals, whether through the CRU or other respective bodies. The changes we are making relate to the thresholds and will significantly help the better delivery of water infrastructure in the State by moving the threshold from €200 million to €500 million. There are certain dual approvals required and, in some instances in transport, sometimes more than two approvals required and multiple agencies regulatory bodies are involved. This will be assessed by the regulatory simplification unit to simplify the approval process and avoid duplication, as Deputy Connolly has referenced, to speed up delivery.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-12