Written answer
Departmental Reports
The Minister did not commit to an annual scorecard, noting that individual departments manage their projects. He cited published sectoral investment plans and the evolving NDP Construction Pipeline, alongside cross-government monitoring, as existing transparency and accountability measures.
60. Deputy Joe Neville asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation if his Department will create an annual published scorecard of every National Development Project over €100 million to ensure transparency and accountability. [74902/26]
Comment on this
As Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitisation I am responsible for setting the overall capital allocations across Departments and for monitoring expenditure at Departmental level.
The responsibility for the management and delivery of individual investment projects or sectoral policy strategies within the allocations agreed under the National Development Plan (NDP) rests with the individual sponsoring Department in each case. Each Minister is responsible for deciding on the priority programmes and projects that will be delivered under their remit within the NDP, for setting out relevant timelines and overseeing delivery.
However, I am committed to ensuring that major infrastructure investments are subject to robust transparency, oversight and accountability arrangements.
Government has significantly strengthened the information available to the public on major capital investments through the publication of Sectoral Investment Plans, the NDP Construction Pipeline and enhanced monitoring and reporting arrangements across Government.
The NDP Review 2025 was published on Tuesday, 22 July 2025, in line with the Programme for Government commitment. The Plan committed €275.4billion in public capital investment to 2035, the largest and most significant capital injection in our economy in the history of the State, and an additional €10billion in equity release up to 2030.
Departments subsequently published sectoral investment plans setting out the capital projects to be prioritised from 2026 to 2030. These plans provide visibility of the delivery pipeline, giving construction firms the certainty they need to invest in hiring, training, and scaling their operations.
My department has also recently published the NDP Construction Pipeline, which aims to identify the projects committed to under the NDP Review that have procurement and construction timelines over the next few years. The Pipeline, which is available on my department’s gov.ie website, includes specific information by sector and geographic location of infrastructure investments across the country. This Pipeline represents an evolving database and will be updated periodically. Future iterations will reflect ongoing updates to project coverage to demonstrates the scale and breadth of Ireland's capital programme.
Furthermore, Action 19 of the Accelerating Infrastructure Action Plan calls for an ‘enhance[d] Infrastructure Coordination function in DPER’. As part of this work, my department coordinates regular updates from departments to the Senior Officials’ Group and Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure on progress of major infrastructure projects across the critical sectors of health, transport, energy, housing and communications to support effective oversight and enhanced visibility of risks and interdependencies.
Through the publication of sectoral investment plans, the NDP Construction Pipeline and enhanced cross-government monitoring of major projects, Government is ensuring that progress, risks and challenges are identified early and that delivery of major infrastructure projects remains transparent and accountable to both the public and to Government.