knowledge 2 December 2025 |

Changing Times: A new infrastructure plan to fundamentally reshape the delivery of infrastructure in Ireland?

The need to accelerate delivery of important infrastructural projects, Ireland’s housing crisis, and the need to transition to renewable energy to meet Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions targets, are amongst the key drivers for change to Ireland’s current consenting regimes and system of judicial review.  The Plan, described as “one of the most important to go to cabinet in years”, is to contain two pieces of legislation – a Critical Infrastructure Bill and an Emergency Powers Bill.  In addition, the Government is also proposing reform of our system of judicial review in a proposed ‘Civil Reform Bill’.  

A Critical Infrastructure Bill is intended to fast-track a small number of highly strategic infrastructure projects through the planning process.  This may take the form of a Ministerial power to designate specific projects as “critical infrastructure” based on defined criteria.  How these criteria are framed will be essential to ensure that they capture the range of projects the Government considers “critical” and no others, as casting the net too widely runs the substantial risk that the reform may undermine ordinary planning procedure.  We would anticipate that water and wastewater infrastructure, certain energy generation infrastructure and certain public transport projects will be included as categories of critical infrastructure projects. It is also likely to include a framework to allow extensions to major pieces of infrastructure, without the need to obtain planning permission.

For these “critical” projects the intent is for the Bill to streamline the consenting process and set tight timelines for decisions.  We await to see how the Bill will seek to be achieve this, and how it will navigate the environmental assessment requirements which flow from EU law, including the EIA Directive and the Habitats Directive.

In tandem with the Critical Infrastructure Bill, and in reaction to the perceived crisis, the Government is considering the introduction of an Emergency Powers Bill in this area.   Such a bill is likely to allow Government to intervene in defined emergency situations, allowing projects of national importance bypass parts of the planning process, and/or provide for the suspension or modification of statutory requirements during these emergency situations.    

As part of this overall strategy, a Civil Reform Bill also appears to be on the Government’s agenda.  It is anticipated that it will include a wide package of measures that will take into account the recommendations made in the Review of Administration of Civil Justice Report, October 2020, (the “Kelly Report”) including reform of judicial review. This move by Government is unsurprising given the increase in the number of legal challenges against An Coimisiún Pleanála this year which is set to surpass 2024 numbers, and which included challenges to projects of strategic importance, meaning that reform of judicial review is on the legislative agenda, with the Civil Reform Bill included in the Government’s Autumn Legislative Programme as a bill for priority publication during the Autumn Session.

It is notable that the Government is seeking to further reform this area before the judicial review reforms already introduced in the Planning and Development Act 2024 (as amended) have been fully commenced and in operation. 

The latest proposals – based on what we know so far – include:

• A greater focus on the public interest when the Courts are making decisions.
• That any procedural error used as the basis for judicial review must be material to the decision made (presumably for an order of certiorari to be granted).  While it may be useful from a certainty perspective to have this codified in legislation, generally courts do not strike down decisions based on minor non-material technical breaches.
• Applicants for judicial review will not be able to challenge decisions based on deficiencies unless they have already applied in the decision-making process to have those deficiencies rectified and have been refused.  The Kelly Report however suggests that this is relevant to errors in a tribunal’s determination or court order rather than errors made by decision making bodies such as, for example, An Coimisiún Pleanála.
• While under Part 9 of the Planning and Development Act 2024 (as amended) (the “2024 Act”) (now commenced), the JR process is reduced to one stage to seek to streamline judicial review challenges and has removed the leave stage, and sought to impose stricter rules on those seeking to being JR challenges, it remains unclear what in addition the Civil Reform Bill will include in relation to the threshold for bringing a legal challenge. A word of caution - Part 9 of the 2024 Act applies to challenges to decisions made under the 2024 Act and therefore does not apply to decisions, for instance, in relation to road and rail projects (as approvals for these types of projects are under enactments other than the 2024 Act).  Indeed, as we await the commencement of a large number of the 2024 Act provisions (including for example, those relating to the process for ordinary planning permissions), there are very few decisions today to which the new JR provisions in Part 9 apply.  Notwithstanding this, it is notable that the Government are now suggesting potential further changes to the judicial review process having already made changes in the 2024 Act

Separately, the Government have announced plans to cap legal fees that litigants can claim from the State even if they succeed in a judicial review challenge against a planning decision. 

The level of the caps will depend on the legal complexity of the case, but it is understood that under the proposals, the limit would stand at under €41,000 for a standard case up to the end of a first instance hearing in the High Court. There would be a limit at the same stage in proceedings of about €53,350 for complex cases and €65,800 for very complex cases.  The proposal is due to go to public consultation shortly.

While these Bills have a number of significant hurdles to surmount before they reach our statute books (including the possibility of a referral by the  President of all or part of a bill under Article 26 of the Constitution to determine its constitutionality), the infrastructure plan going to cabinet today does signal a significant Government intent to accelerate the delivery of large infrastructure projects and to reduce the level and scope of challenge that consents/approvals for those projects face.