Not for the first time, creaking water systems are being blamed for hindering new homes.
This is part of a wider picture of delay, disarray and litigation which has hobbled the delivery of infrastructure needed to keep pace with rapid population and economic growth.
Dublin City Council (DCC) plans 6,000 homes in a new suburb on former industrial land near Glasnevin Cemetery. This would be Dublin’s largest urban regeneration project since the docklands revival began in the 1980s. The plan is, however, threatened by water and sewerage constraints. “Water supply in the Greater Dublin Area is on a knife edge,” said Uisce Éireann, citing long planning delays to proposals for big sewerage works.
An Bord Pleanála granted permission in 2019 for the Greater Dublin Drainage (GDD) project. The High Court quashed the permission in 2020 after a challenge taken by a daily sea swimmer, who had concerns about the potential impact on water quality and environment.
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Mr Justice Allen dismissed “headline-grabbing” claims that permission was granted without consideration of what would come through the wastewater pipe, saying that was “simply and obviously incorrect”. But he still struck down the permission, finding it “legally flawed” because planners failed to seek certain Environmental Protection Agency observations.
The matter went back to An Bord Pleanála. A consultation on further Uisce Éireann information closed 11 months ago, but it still awaits clarity on a timeline for planners’ eventual decision. Meanwhile, the wait for housing goes on.
The stalled GDD project is one of several Uisce Éireann plans subject to litigation in what by now is a familiar story of infrastructure held back by court action and other barriers.
Uisce Éireann is party to four live judicial review cases in the High Court, involving disputed permission for water infrastructure. This is in addition to judicial review cases challenging housing, where the water body is a party in the case.
“In our experience, judicial reviews spend between 12-24 months in the court system, with varying impact on the timelines for delivery of projects depending on the outcome of the case,” it said.
The infrastructure gap doesn’t stop there. Builders recently warned “thousands” of new homes were stalled because of problems gaining access to electricity in parts of Dublin’s commuter belt and Cork. ESB Networks has cited “significant additional demands” on its network, and longer lead-in times for procuring equipment in international markets.
Such delays come even though electricity infrastructure plans from national grid operator EirGrid are not in litigation: “Currently, no EirGrid infrastructure projects are the subject of judicial review proceedings before the courts, or planning appeals before an Bord Pleanála.”
There is more. After Four Courts proceedings over the disputed Dublin Airport passenger cap, the question could be determined by European Union judges in Luxembourg. Similarly, a years-long row over the Ardee bypass in Co Louth is before the Supreme Court but may yet be subject to European rulings. The Ardee proposal, in planning for many years, is just one contentious road project among many.
In an economy under pressure from Donald Trump’s trade war, all of this adds to concern about Ireland’s ability to attract foreign direct investment.
“The planning and regulatory environment is a barrier to investment,” said an October report on infrastructure from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, the budget watchdog. Conditions have not improved since. “The planning and objection system has made it harder to deliver infrastructure projects and has increased their costs.”
How serious is the effort to get to grips with such problems? Tom Phillips, a planning consultant, points to 83 Housing Commission recommendations issued last year, several of them on infrastructure. However, a review found 65 of the 83 were already “implemented, under way or partially under way”.
“That range of ‘partially under way to implemented’ covers a multitude of sins,” Phillips said. “It is a Jesuitical argument. We need to be much more overt and look at these recommendations to see the degree to which they are actually under way as opposed to aspirational.”
To break the logjam, Phillips suggests new “infrastructure priority zones” with fast-track planning to match defined forms of infrastructure required to service zoned housing land. Applications would go direct to An Coimisiún Pleanála – the new name for An Bord Pleanála – but with no right of appeal. “There’s an imbalance between the common good and the rights of the individual to object, which can be genuine or unfounded,” he said.
To say the least, this is sensitive. In the last coalition government, a push to curtail rights to challenge planning in the courts prompted resistance from the Greens.
Despite frustration at long delays, officials cite reluctance to do “violence to democratic legitimacy” in planning.
One potential change is to revive a recommendation in 2020 from a civil law review group chaired by former High Court president Peter Kelly.
The group suggested a law to block judicial reviews arising from alleged “clerical or typographical” errors or “unintentional slips or omissions”, unless applicants showed they were wrongly refused “rectification of the deficiency” earlier. The group did not suggest invoking such measures in the public interest, but it did stir discussion.
Uisce Éireann said it takes five to seven years to get through all consents for “straightforward” water projects. More complex projects can take up to 10 years and “very complex projects” can take more than 10 years. As the housing crisis worsens, this is a problem.
