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Would a new Department of Infrastructure proposed by Simon Harris work? Experts are not so sure

Two external advisory groups recommended a similar idea but as a new unit within the Department of Public Expenditure rather than as a separate government department

Artwork depicting the proposed MetroLink station at Dublin Airport. If a Department of Infrastructure were created, it would handle large-scale projects such as the construction of Dublin's metro system. Photograph: metrolink.ie
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Martin Wall
Fri Sept 06 2024 - 06:00

On Wednesday the head of the Dublin Airport Authority publicly backed a proposal by Taoiseach Simon Harris to set up a new Government Department of Infrastructure.

Kenny Jacobs suggested that the State needed faster planning and “joined-up thinking” regarding the development of infrastructure.

Harris has argued that it made no sense to have five or six departments involved in the delivery of one project.

“I believe all this capital spending should be done by the best planners, procurers and protectors of the public interest under one roof,” he wrote in the Business Post last weekend.

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Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe last month said the Fine Gael election manifesto would contain proposals for such a new department.

Some experts in politics and infrastructural developments are not so sure about the whole concept. Harris first floated the proposal in July, though the general idea is not exactly new.

In 2017 the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), which advises the Government on policy, and a “public investment management assessment” (Pima) carried out by the International Monetary Fund set out reform proposals for infrastructural projects.

Both essentially suggested the establishment of a new body, though critically not a stand-alone government department but rather a unit inside the existing Department of Public Expenditure.

The Pima report recommended an “infrastructure projects unit” within the department overseeing spending “to provide advisory services to the Minister on appraisal and selection of projects, and to carry out studies of infrastructure bottlenecks, financing and evaluation of lessons learned”.

NESC proposed an Infrastructure Policy Centre, which would provide expertise on infrastructure policy and investment. It would be based in the Department of Public Expenditure, but would also report to the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Finance.

It suggested it would have three roles: financing and funding, development projects, and longer-term vision and strategy.

Donohoe said that changing the shape of Government may be necessary to deliver various large-scale projects that will be coming through the planning process at the same time during the term of the next government.

These include the Dublin metro, the offshore wind farms, the long-awaited Cork-Limerick motorway and the water pipeline from the Shannon to Dublin.

“I think the challenge with this would be defining what is really important infrastructure and what isn’t,” Donohoe told reporters last month when asked about the idea.

“The metro, which is a project that the Department of Transport would be aiming to deliver, is a huge project. But if you were to move a project like that now away from the Department of Transport, or away from the National Transport Authority, it could make it far harder to do.”

Despite the challenges, the spending Minister said he backed the idea.

“It’s an idea that I certainly support and we will look at how that would work in the coming weeks and months,” he said.

[ John McManus: Last thing we need is a Department of Infrastructure ]

Prof Eoin Reeves, an expert on infrastructure development at the Department of Economics at the University of Limerick, welcomed the debate on the Taoiseach’s proposal, but was not sure it would address challenges in delivering big projects posed by labour shortages, planning issues and an economy that is at full capacity.

“In the absence of knowing the details of how exactly it would all work out, I would have concerns about the workability of it,” he said.

“We have bodies and agencies responsible for infrastructure at all sorts of levels of government and in local government. I am not sure how that would all be rolled into one department.”

“I can’t see how it could work that smoothly. It is a proposal that is worth talking about.”

He pointed out how it had been considered in recent years – by NESC and the Pima report – and that “was not the position that was put forward,” he said.

Gary Murphy, professor of politics at Dublin City University, is sceptical about the idea and has concerns that the new department could lead to internal wrangling and tensions due to the power concentrated within it.

He suggested it could exacerbate tensions within a coalition government or lead to power struggles within the Civil Service.

He pointed to another big political idea of nearly 50 years ago: the establishment of the Department of Economic Planning in 1977.

The move was completely resisted by the Department of Finance, said Prof Murphy, and by the time Charles Haughey abolished the department in 1980, it “had become a busted flush”.