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THE DEVIL IS in the detail – and there is much detail yet to be revealed in Project Ireland 2040.
A sweeping overview of the strategic planning that might get us to an Ireland in which would want to live in by 2040 was launched yesterday by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his Cabinet in Sligo. The ministerial cavalcade no doubt had a pleasant drive on the M4/N4 to Sligo IT but, to paraphrase previous incumbents of the seat of power, there might be much done, but a lot more to do.
The ‘more’ was contained in the document released at 2pm yesterday, outlining where €116 billion should be invested over the next 10 years in order to futureproof Ireland against a host of factors, including the impact of Brexit and a population growth of 1 million people.
(We took a look at where this €116bn is coming from yesterday evening.)
The main points broadcast a vision with some breadth, promising 10 key results in areas from climate action to plentiful housing, a health service that delivers without delay and a cultural and creative landscape accessible to all citizens.
It will, however, be some months before we receive a more definitive timeline on how these targets will be met.
The following is the timeline which yesterday’s documents lays out. It does come with a health warning that the spending predicted here is based on Department of Public Expenditure and Reform projections over the next decade. It is not clear if any portion of the capital funding is ring fenced for projects that are not already in train.
Within a year
Businesses will be able to apply to the new €500 million ‘disruptive technologies innovation fund’ – this will be available to both start-ups and established companies who want to grow the use of innovative technology in their work and processes.
The €1bn rural development fund will be available in early 2019 for drawdown but it is of note that only €315m will be assigned up to 2022 – so around two-thirds of this won’t be available until the final five years of this 10-year plan
It’s a similar situation with the urban regeneration fund – that is worth €2bn over 10 years but only €550m of this will be available up to 2022.
An initial tranche of €100m will be open to applications under the new climate action fund (which will grow to a €500m investment up to 2027).
A second €30m regional enterprise development fund will be launched later this year (although this is the second half of the €60m total fund launched in May of last year).
By 2020
The National Forensic Mental Health Hospital is a 120-bed facility that is to replace the Central Mental Hospital and be open in Portrane, Co Dublin by 2020.
An urgent care centre for children at Connolly hospital in Dublin is to open next year and a similar facility at Tallaght hospital in 2020.
New home builds (excluding social) are to be delivered to the tune of 25,000 homes annually up to 2020. The number is to expand beyond that to 30,000-35,000 homes per year between 2021 and 2027.
The O’Devaney Gardens housing development – an example of ‘urban infill’ that this plan is keen to encourage in order to build up, not out in urban areas – is to be finished by 2020. As this is still in a public procurement process in the hope of adding 530 homes to the 56 social houses already underway, we’d describe this end date as hopeful but tentative.
By 2021
The second runway at Dublin Airport is to be open for business, along with a new visual control tower.
The redevelopment of the Natural History Museum, the National Library of Ireland and the Crawford Art Gallery (Cork) are to be completed by 2021. A second phase of development at Crawford, worth €18m, is to be finished by 2027.
By 2022
The National Children’s Hospital at St James’s – a massively delayed project – is to be open within four years.
New diesel electric trains are to arrive on our tracks in 2022 – this is expected to add 300 new rail carriages to national rail routes.
Work is to start this year and next on upgrades of Castletownbere and Killybegs fishery harbours – there will be further maintenance and upgrades starting up to 2022 at Howth, Dunmore East, Castletownbere, Dingle, Ros an Mhíl and Killybegs. (But the end date is not clear.) Work is already underway at increasing capacity at Dublin Port (end date 2022), Port of Cork – the Ringaskiddy development is to be completed in 2020 – and soon to start at Shannon-Foynes (completion – 2022), the three top-tier ports in the country.
It’s worth noting that the Government is to carry out a “full mid-term review” of this national development plan in 2022, to see if they are making sufficient progress in delivery of every planned project released in today’s documents. We’ll mark that in our diary.
By 2023
Limerick city is in the process of upgrading almost a thousand homes in some of its most disadvantaged areas and delivering 400 new homes – this has been slated since 2013 and should finally be completed a decade on, in 2023. The plan published yesterday said it will support a number of social and economic initiatives in these areas to complement the builds and community.
Within 10 years to 2027
There is a promise to deliver 2,600 new acute beds by 2027. We understand that a chunk of these are to come from a new hospital in Cork which is mentioned in the plan. However, the plan is sparse on details of where this hospital will be in Cork and how many beds will be there, so the beds target will be partly dependent on that project not running into any snags and being delivered on a yet-to-be-declared date.
The three new elective procedure facilities are to provide beds in Dublin, Cork and Galway and these are also to be up and running within the decade in a bid to tackle the lengthy waiting lists in the country. Around 4,500 extra spaces are to be created within the community nursing home sector by 2027 as the percentage of over-60s in the population grows.
The relocation of Dublin maternity hospitals at the Coombe, the Rotunda and Holles Street, and Limerick’s maternity facility’s move to UHL are all slated to be finally complete by 2027.
The Government has vowed to deliver 112,000 new social housing units by 2027 – as its current Housing Action Plan says 26,000 new social units were to be built between 2016 and 2021, that means there will have to be a serious uptick in the acquisition of these homes in the final five years of this plan in order to meet its target.
We are told that there will be 20,000 school places delivered each year over the ‘medium-term’ – possibly not peaking until 2025.
There is €9.4bn set aside to 2027 to invest in enterprise, innovation and skills – many of the initiatives detailed have been previously announced but there is a further commitment to investing in the 7 national universities, upgrading ITs to potential university level and other educational measures. the disruptive technologies innovation fund of half a billion comes under this €9.4bn.
The Godot of public transport projects, Metro North, is expected to be completed to be in a position to bring travellers to and from Dublin airport to the city by the year 2027.
Metro North is not the only public transport advance which is we are promised will be fit for use by 2027. (The hint is probably in the section entitled ‘Public Transport Network 2027′).
By the end of the decade, we are told we will see the DART expansion programme fully implemented, with lines to Drogheda, Celbridge/Hazelhatch, Maynooth and M3 Parkway, as well as new stations to link up with other transport options. It will use the Phoenix Park rail link and tunnel and it is hoped that there will be a big increase in capacity at peak travelling hours.
More bus corridors (including segregated cycling facilities of which there is no more detail in the plan), simpler fare structures, new park-and-ride stops and low-emission buses are part of the plan of what the Government is calling BusConnects. This is to roll out in Dublin, Cork and Galway, again all with the end-of-decade deadline of 2027.
So-called ‘growth enablers’ for urban centres including the Waterford North Quays zone, Cork Docklands and associated infrastructural connectors are all to benefit from that €2bn urban regeneration fund within the 10-year programme.
€7.3bn is being pumped into the regional roads network and in particular to the neglected North-West – the A5 road project is one of these to be explored but details of road completions are not clearer than 2018-2027.
These are the roads – including the M20 Cork to Limerick motorway- we are promised by 2027. There is slightly more concrete news for the N6 Galway City Ring Road, which is to be completed by 2025:
There is currently a publicly-funded programme to combat afforestation that has been provided for up until 2020. The National Development Plan wants to continue to provide for this sector beyond 2020, up to 2040.
By 2025, Moneypoint power plant will no longer be burning coal.
The proposed Celtic Interconnector – a €1bn underwater electricity cable linking Ireland and France – is to be finished by 2025/2026.
Several phases of the redevelopment of Mountjoy and Limerick prison complexes should be complete by 2027, with some remaining work to be done by 2031.
Upgrades of 30 Garda stations, new training facilities and control rooms, replacement of Garda aircraft and a much-longed-for alternative to the PULSE system.
New or refurbished court houses at Galway, Wicklow, Portlaoise, Tralee, Roscommon, Dungloe and Tuam.
Beyond 2027
No new petrol or diesel private vehicles will be sold in Ireland by 2030 – but the State hopes that half a million electric vehicles will be on the road instead by that time, supported by climate action initiatives, extended charging stations among other facilities.
Peat power plants will have converted to “sustainable low-carbon technologies” by 2030.
The number of homes being upgraded to energy-efficient status will be hitting 45,000 per annum from 2021-2030 (the target pre-2021 is 30,000 homes).
Public sector buildings will be retrofitted for energy efficiency by 2050.
One Fine Gael TD press released his delight at the four Luas extensions being included in the plan, saying that “we now have a commitment to get it started in 9 years at the latest”. The plan actually says that it is hoped that “appraisal, planning and design” of the Luas extensions to Bray, Finglas, Lucan and Poolbeg will be completed by the end of 2027. If it is a particularly efficient process, the first shovel might be in the ground by the start of 2028 at the very earliest but it’s unlikely commuters will be riding those rails that year.
The same goes for a proposed light rail corridor to Cork – at this stage, it is a suggestion rather than a confirmed link as the Cork Transport Strategy itself is still being decided.
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How could anyone listening to this grand plan reveal have faith in Fianna Gael to deliver a fraction of what’s been set out? At this point & given previous history the one thing you can be certain of is that they will say anything to get a vote & lying to the electorate is their forte. Nothing more being planned other than re-election.
@Setrakian: And when will the national debt be repaid?
@Jorge Thompson: probably never. It’s leverage for others to maintain an interest in Ireland at the cost to everyone living here for as long as they like. It’s f$$ked up.
@Jorge Thompson: debt is not always a bad thing and shouldn’t be feared, provided you’re making more than the interest on the cost of capital. In simplistic terms, if you make 10c for every Euro you have then the more you have the more you make. If extra Euro is purchased at a cost of 3c per Euro you’re still making 7c per Euro on this borrowed cash and covering the cost of the capital. The key is managing the cost of capital and keeping that less than the return
how will you pay a national debt if your stuck in a country nobody wants to invest in because its lack of infrastructure means that investment goes to more advanced economies.
Today we can’t support a growing workforce. Our inability to deliver this is astounding! Our towns and cities are sprawling messes created by joining up housing estates on an ad-hoc basis. Travel to Any other EU country and its shocking how far behind we are. This investment is 30 years overdue!! Nobody cares who does it, JUST GET IT DONE!
@Jorge Thompson: Never…There isn’t a country in Europe that doesn’t have a National debt
@Setrakian: Many of these plans pre-date the FG Government so really it hangs on Government as a whole to deliver these.
They ought to break ground on as many as they can because nobody in Government has the cajones to stop a development thats underway.
Any chance they might try and solve present problems such as housing children in hotel rooms,600 plus people on Trollies,600000 on hospital waiting lists housing crises and on and on …….
@john g mcgrath: You don’t think the hospital beds and house building described above has anything to do with that?
Depends, they must have a general election in mind
@Arfer Daly: What do any of them care if its not delivered or more likely as you put it screw up they will be mostly retired by then and receiving there fat pension 2040 rates of coarse
@John Walsh: they win more votes with give away budgets than plans like this. Wait until they cut more taxes and give more away on SW , there wont be any money to build stuff
Ah the Metro is back on the cards .. . Here comes an election lads….
Leo’s spin dept., worth everything cent of taxpayers money.
Shame on you Irish media, you know it’s not worth the paper it’s written on
Does anyone know where to find maps of the new proposed dart extension/metrolink /luas lines? Regarding the southside where i am familiar enough to comment..What i’ve read so far is the luas will b extended to Bray…where they have a dart already. The metrolink will go from sandyford to swords…sandyford already has the luas. Having said that if u live in Bray/ Sandyford u might still have to drive to the train/tram, but they are still there …yet UCD where so many people go is not serviced by a train/tram. Nor…rathmines/rathgar/ terenure/ kimmage/ templeogue/ rathfarnham/ Ballinteer etc.I could go on..why lay new tracks where tracks exist….they should incorporate more villages and then build a luas ring connecting east to west without having to go via the city center everytime!
Believe it when I see it
Not a mention of Rural Broadband … or did I miss it?
@WoodlandBard: Already announced. 9/10 homes by 2020 and the last few by 2022
Does worry me, I’ll be dead and gone long before that – if I make it to 2020, I’ll be doing well but won’y hold my breath due to the HSE cuts.
Don’t expect anything soon one thing you can guarantee from long term plans from politicians it’s done for publicity not delivery.
Out of all the puff of smoke and dreams not one mention of Rosslare upgrading facilities or providing better services besides Rosslare the only mention Wexford gets is the Enniscorthty bypass and New Ross bypass but there due to open in 2019 and the Oylgate to Rosslare bypass but that’ll never happen.
How about a alternative river crossing for Wexford Town to relieve the pressure off Wexford Bridge
Improving train journey times from Wexford to Connolly station so workers can get to work for 9am
Increase facilities and services at Wexford General Hospital roll out macular day care services increase the amount of consultants specialising in diabetes or endocrine medicine
Attract foreign companies to set up in Wexford County A university for the south east needs to happen.
@Tom Harpur: also expedite the purchase of lands and develop the Carlow IT campus which is now stalled
think of the Children’s hospital and relax everyone..
nothing will happen for 10 years.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to prioritise current problems like health care, housing and climate change? Fat lot of good some new infrastructure is gonna do us when we’re baked into oblivion or drowned like rats.
@Eoghan Lumsden: The traditional reaction is to say ‘climate change’ is a hoax however the real issue is how people do not make the effort to see what planetary climate is compared to those of the other planets in the solar system. The confinement of planetary climate to the Earth alone is what keeps the hyper-fuss of ‘climate change’ rolling along but it amounts to an incredible waste of the mind even if it serves political, social and academic purposes.
It is our education system and the curriculum that needs a complete overhaul but keeping in mind that universities are older than most democracies, such a root and branch overhaul would be exceptionally difficult due to academic agendas and pretense.
@Gerald Kelleher: So how are the flood defenses coming along on Mars.
@James Darby: Mars has a 25 degree inclination so the rate of change in conditions across an orbit is similar to that of the Earth with its 23 1/2 degree inclination. It is just a higher standard of reasoning.
@Eoghan Lumsden:
The reason the country is in current pickle on housing and healthcare is precisely because there was no meaningful long-term econ Pln at Gov level in the roaring 90’s and early 00’s.
You had buffoon Bertie in FF spndn large annual surpluses during boom years as if there was no tmro, ably assisted and egged on by then buffoons in FG, and it, combined with buffoon regulation in banking and auditing, all leading to late 00’s catastrophic banking and property meltdown, which citizens will be paying for, for generations.
Credit where credit is due, formulation of this Nat Dev Plan at least makes some serious attempt in eliminating possibility of repeats on those toxic boom bust five year cycles, caused by parish pump political maneuverings by then ruling coalitions.
Friggin fairytale, but saps that get a mention will vote fg because they’re gonna rejuvenate every small town with less then blah blah blah living in it. Pure nonsense. Q every village and town applying for money for new parish centre, bingo hall, Gaa club hall etc etc. Jayzus….
Lol..” national development plan ” part 453
Nothing more gut wrenching than to see those who can’t manage today planning tomorrow.
The only thing they left off the list was World Peace and a cure for Cancer, probably keeping that gun powder dry for the election campaign?
Show us the money.
Most likely a vanity project!
Based on neo classical mythology!
A 50m golden statue of Leo and Enda in loin cloths wrestling against and subduing the Barbarian hordes of homeless, sick, unemployed and compliant Irish citizens to protect the poor unfortunate engorged Vultures now too heavy to fly after stuffing their stomaches with the wealth of Ireland!
The 5m PAYE tax payer funded Sock puppets will be along shortly to spin some nonsense!
Well….at least the Virtual Ireland pictures that FG trotted out, were pretty.
I don’t think we can wait till 2040 to sort out the unbalanced mess this countries in. We need brave innovative decisions right now
Plus 1bn to make pigs fly.
95% of this is ‘pie in the sky’. A lot of hot air and wishful thinking. To me, logically the first thing to do is to complete the infrastructure, then maybe some balanced regional alignment will naturally follow. It simply is not possible to ‘force’ companies and people to relocate.
As a Kerryman, it appears that the only plans in the pipeline for us for the next 20 years include remedial work at Dingle harbour and the provision of a new courthouse in Tralee. Thanks a lot.
Well, I suppose we still have the football to fall back on!
I know most of this seems like Pie in the Sky stuff but at least they are trying to plan for the longer term.
It’s more than FF did during the boom times when we could have actually developed infrastructure….
Its which projects can we expect to see.
Adding first in, I fear, is a step to far for this bunch of incompetent politicians.
None, because the gov default answer from now on will be “it’s in the 2040 plan”, and most of these idiot politicians won’t be around in 2040.
It looks like leos taken enda election farce of “lets keep the recovery going”, and multiplied it by a huge amount. Just proves, these gombeen politicians learn nothing!
Yesterday on 145 on Batchelors walk right at O’Connell Bridge it took the bus 25 mins to get from there to the 145 bustop on D’Olier street a distance of about 200 yards. There was a wall of buses from top of O’Connell to the bottleneck at Tara street were the Luas is, three lanes of buses back to back all the way down to the GPO. And then I look at this “plan” devised by clowns from a party of buffoons, pour another whiskey and laugh.
Investing in more wind farms is total madness. I checked the accounts for a few including ESB, they are all making losses and being kept afloat by larger companies. Total madness.
http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2018/02/wind-farm-that-caused-huge-landslide.html
Why is none of it ready to get started today?
Twenty odd years ago The new Childrens Hospital was going to be built and its still not done .So how are they going to promise us that this project is? I never believe anything a liar tells me. Must be an election coming up.And pigs do really fly.
You forgot to highlight the western rail corridor, to carry up to six passengers at a time between nowhere and nowhere at a subsidy of only 100 euro per passenger journey, because they have the luas up in Dublin.
@John Mulligan: is that the reason dublin is shite to travel around??..the bestards! The next culchie i see im gonna kick him in the goolies.
This would still leave Ireland with a third-world road system in 2040.
This plan would still leave Ireland with a third-world road system in 2040. Tsk.
Needs to be some rail connection with the airport to the city.
As they say Ireland will be a grande place when its finished.
None. Maybe Sean de Rossa Garda station
No mention of draining the Shannon…..shame on them.
Kenny and Burton turned the sod on The Events Centre in Cork with mighty fanfare in an election photo op…… Cork is still waiting. DejaVu anyone?
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