{"id":637107,"date":"2026-09-26T23:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T23:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/637107\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T23:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T23:40:21","slug":"wait-times-for-esb-connections-in-new-housing-estates-are-starting-to-shrink-dramatically","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/637107\/","title":{"rendered":"Wait times for ESB connections in new housing estates are starting to shrink dramatically"},"content":{"rendered":"

WAIT TIMES FOR ESB connections in new housing estates, which had been a bugbear delaying people being able to live in their homes in recent years, have dramatically shortened.<\/p>\n

Grid connections had come under strain\u00a0in recent years<\/a> thanks to a growing population and increasing energy demands.<\/p>\n

But a Construction Industry Federation (CIF) conference heard this week how tweaks to the system are allowing developers to hook homes up to the grid much more quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Connection plans are now being worked on simultaneously to the developer getting initial planning permission from the local council, rather than having to wait for permission and potentially fall down the pecking order of other industrial sites seeking connections.<\/p>\n

Brian Tapley, ESB\u2019s head of networks delivery, told industry figures that connections \u201cwould have taken six months or longer\u201d before recent work undertaken by the government\u2019s infrastructure taskforce.<\/p>\n

Tapley said that the ESB has been able to \u201cgreatly speed up time\u201d for getting projects through, which is part of the wider \u20ac30 billion investment plan to enable new housing.<\/p>\n

He said the ESB has also been reinforcing its network to cater for Ireland\u2019s population growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Se\u00e1n O\u2019Driscoll of the government\u2019s infrastructure taskforce told The Journal that it\u2019s a \u201csmall victory\u201d as part of the taskforce\u2019s action plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, unless you had planning, the ESB wouldn\u2019t even talk to you about a connection. They\u2019re now doing it simultaneously, so that speeds up on the ground physically,\u201d O\u2019Driscoll said.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_7385\"
\n Sean O\u2019Driscoll, a adviser to the government on infrastructure The Journal<\/p>\n

The Journal\n<\/p>\n

Rather infamously, delays to an ESB connection last year saw dozens of families in Portlaoise delayed for months from moving into their brand-new homes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This resulted in the families having to cram into relatives\u2019 homes or stay renting, while also paying a mortgage for the home they couldn\u2019t live in.<\/p>\n

The problems were laid out at an Oireachtas committee hearing by the ESB soon afterwards, as they explained that they operated on a first-come first-served basis for new connections.<\/p>\n

This meant that the Portlaoise estate and others could not get in the queue for a grid connection.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had the numbers on the houses, the local authority had certified what the name of the estate was, but nobody could move in. That\u2019s now all changed,\u201d O\u2019Driscoll said.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Driscoll, a former chief executive of electrical giant Glen Dimplex and ex-chair of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), was appointed to the infrastructure taskforce last year to tackle blockages across major energy and water projects.<\/p>\n

He said the ESB measure is a \u201csmall, incremental thing\u201d but he believes it helps to build belief in the government\u2019s desire to genuinely streamline the delivery of housing and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe infrastructure action plan has some really big stuff, but we\u2019ve looked at it from top to bottom and from bottom up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a small victory as part of the action plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the other end of the scale, the taskforce has helped see nine major projects deemed as \u2018critical infrastructure\u2019 to allow them to be fast-tracked through the planning process by granting them priority status.<\/p>\n

These include Dublin\u2019s Metrolink, light rail for Cork and the Galway city ring road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WAIT TIMES FOR ESB connections in new housing estates, which had been a bugbear delaying people being able…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,27800,807,61,4082,270664,60,270665,270072],"class_list":["post-637107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-esb","tag-housing","tag-ie","tag-infrastructure","tag-infrastructure-taskforce","tag-ireland","tag-one-neat-trick","tag-sean-o"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}