There\u2019s a scene in Monty Python\u2019s Life of Brian where the People\u2019s Front of Judea list everything the Romans have done for them \u2013 sanitation, medicine, education, roads, public health \u2013 while insisting the Romans have done nothing. It\u2019s a masterpiece of circular logic disguised as revolutionary fervour.<\/p>\n
I mention this because when the MetroLink<\/a> programme director Sean Sweeney appeared before an Oireachtas<\/a> committee recently to announce that Ireland doesn\u2019t have enough workers to build MetroLink, that we\u2019ll need 8,000 imported workers<\/a> plus special housing arrangements, and that there are essentially no Irish firms capable of handling the major contracts, I couldn\u2019t help thinking, what exactly have our handsomely paid infrastructure technocrats ever done for us? Apart from the risk registers, delivery constraint analyses, workforce planning studies, accommodation strategies, and comprehensive recostings based on designs that aren\u2019t finalised yet … what have they actually delivered?<\/p>\n The answer? A cottage industry in problem identification.<\/p>\n Consider three pronouncements. The Construction Industry Federation<\/a> insists we have plenty of workers; the problem is pipeline, planning, funding. Engineers Ireland warns desperately that we need a pipeline to avoid losing the workers we apparently have, pointing to 2011 when Metro North was cancelled and skilled workers scattered to Australia, the UK, anywhere that actually built things. Then the MetroLink director tells an Oireachtas committee that Irish construction fundamentally cannot support this project. Three different stories? No. Three people describing the same car crash from different angles.<\/p>\n What we\u2019re witnessing isn\u2019t a simple labour shortage. It\u2019s something more exquisite. We have systematically destroyed our ability to deliver major infrastructure at scale, then spent 15 years expressing surprise about it. It\u2019s like the Two Ronnies class sketch where everyone knows their place and stays there \u2013 except in our version, everyone\u2019s staring at a metro that doesn\u2019t exist while reciting their assigned lines about why it can\u2019t.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Infrastructure or bust? Nothing more important for Coalition than making this workOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n We started building Luas in 2001. Between 2009 and 2011, we delivered 13km in three years \u2013 momentum, expertise, institutional memory. We were quite good at this. Then 2011\u2019s fiscal panic cancelled Metro North. The skilled workers didn\u2019t wait around. They left. The institutional knowledge evaporated like morning mist. What followed was six years of nothing.<\/p>\n The Metro North cancellation is our Rosetta Stone for understanding Irish infrastructure dysfunction. It\u2019s the perfect case study in false economy. Save a few billion by cancelling, then spend multiples of that rebuilding the capacity you destroyed. It\u2019s like burning down your house to save on heating bills.<\/p>\n When both industry and Engineers Ireland talk about needing a \u201cconsistent pipeline,\u201d it\u2019s tempting to dismiss it as self-interested pleading. But here\u2019s the uncomfortable truth. They are completely right. <\/p>\n A pipeline isn\u2019t some neoliberal fantasy. It\u2019s fundamental to institutional capacity. Companies can justify investing in specialised equipment costing tens of millions if there\u2019s another project afterward. Workers commit to training instead of off to Australia. Knowledge transfers naturally between projects. What we do instead is operate on stop-start funding cycles, cancel projects whenever Finance gets nervous, announce shiny new plans every election, watch capacity drain away, express theatrical surprise when we can\u2019t deliver, then repeat.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Miriam Lord: Will Government\u2019s 30-pint infrastructure plan bring festive cheer to all?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n But wait, there\u2019s more. MetroLink needs 8,000 workers who\u2019ll need housing. The proposed solution? Work with the Land Development Agency to make developments \u201cviable\u201d by committing to occupancy during construction. We\u2019re building housing to accommodate the workers who will build the railway that\u2019s being built partly to support housing development. When accommodating tunnel diggers becomes your residential development strategy, something has gone badly awry.<\/p>\n The current official estimate stands at \u20ac9.5 billion, a 2021 base-case figure that TII acknowledges is obsolete, given construction costs have risen 30 per cent since. A figure of \u20ac23.4 billion came from the Department of Public Expenditure as a \u201cP95\u201d estimate earlier this year. This is just bureaucratic terminology meaning there\u2019s a 95 per cent confidence the final cost won\u2019t exceed this catastrophic ceiling. A comprehensive recosting arrives early next year, based on designs that won\u2019t be finalised until next month. Translation: we\u2019re flying blind, we know it, we\u2019re telling you we know it. Trust us anyway. <\/p>\n \u201cThere are no firms of the scale or expertise in Ireland to run those major contracts. The top line is that the Irish construction industry cannot support the construction of this project and even that is without factoring in the other major infrastructure projects that are in play at the moment as well.\u201d This admission from Sweeney<\/a> deserves examination. The message is: it\u2019s very difficult, there are many obstacles, good luck everyone. Sweeney\u2019s solution is to bring in workers from abroad<\/a>, except that we have nowhere for them to live.<\/p>\n The problem for Ireland is that we have too many professional problem-identifiers, and too few professional problem-solvers. Round and round we go, each institution adding another layer to our collective understanding of why nothing can happen, until Irish governance resembles a Kafkaesque story where bureaucracy exists primarily to document its own inadequacy.<\/p>\n This week\u2019s Infrastructure Action Plan promises to accelerate delivery through fast-track approvals and streamlined judicial reviews. It\u2019s precisely the sort of reform that sounds transformative until you realise we\u2019re speeding up planning without building capacity. We\u2019ll approve projects faster, then watch them stall in procurement or sit on desks awaiting specialist staff who don\u2019t exist. It\u2019s like buying a faster car when the problem is you never learned to drive.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not fundamentally incapable. We are selectively incompetent. Wherever there\u2019s consistent pipeline and commercial incentives (motorways, data centres) we manage fine. Wherever there\u2019s political interference and stop-start funding, we produce comprehensive documentation explaining why progress is impossible.<\/p>\n Madrid built 200km in 12 years. We\u2019ve built 42 in 24, with 15-year gaps between extensions. That\u2019s not a resource constraint or planning problem. That\u2019s a choice. A sustained, deliberate, institutionally embedded choice to prioritise political theatre over actual delivery.<\/p>\n