Planning reform is not a return to the Wild West

We cannot ignore or object our way out of the infrastructure challenges affecting the country; we must build, writes Dónal O'Neill, senior policy advisor at the Association of Consulting Engineers

Kent Railway Station in Cork City with the docklands and River Lee. Across our infrastructure network, development timelines have doubled over 20 years. File picture: Larry Cummins

The Government’s Accelerating Infrastructure Report is a very unusual report. Compared to the number of publications that gather dust on the shelves of Government Buildings, this is a cause for optimism. 

Firstly, writ large throughout is an acceptance that the delay in infrastructure and housing is self-imposed by the accumulation of regulatory, legislative and procedural systems successive Governments have introduced since 2008.