What do politicians propose when they want to be seen to “do something” about a problem? When they can’t really think of anything else, a proposal to create a new government department is one of the options in the playbook. This spins into a promise of “a new focus” on the problem at hand, a “fresh start”, a sign of serious intent.
Now, Taoiseach Simon Harris is indicating that a new department of infrastructure will be part of the Fine Gael election platform. An optimistic take is that he recognises that Ireland has a big problem in the delivery of housing, water, energy infrastructure and so on and wants to do something about it. A cynical view would be that he just wants to be seen to be doing something about it. Either way this is the vital issue that brings together key economic and social priorities – where the housing crisis meets a big future threat to foreign investment.
The problem is clear. Speaking to the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland at an event this week, the Taoiseach said Ireland needs to find a way “to cut through bureaucracy and other things that stifle the delivery” of housing and big projects. That this was important was underlined by Elaine Murphy, an experienced multinational executive and current president of the chamber, who told the same meeting that a “step change” was vital and that Ireland is having “to white-glove the relationship with corporates, emphasising other areas that we are good at like our diverse talent and research and development, but we are at a juncture”.
And this juncture is dangerous. The “white-glove” phrase was new to me – it is an American term, referring to the way a posh restaurant treats clients. But you get the picture. To translate, we might say that we are having to plámás the big US companies who have run out of patience with our planning system and the slow delivery of vital water and energy upgrades.
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While Harris has identified the problem, the idea of a new department of infrastructure is not a compelling one. It would likely take ages to set up, as decisions are made on what bits of other departments would move, along with all the logistics. It would not answer the key deficits in expertise that exist in some areas, which are not the fault of the Civil Service, but reflect the increasingly complex issues they are having to deal with.
The idea of institutional change is good, but it is worth considering other approaches. The Housing Commission that reported earlier this year wrestled with this all too and – in relation to its brief – came up with the idea of a housing delivery oversight executive, a small team of experts charged with focusing the whole system of what needs to be done and ensuring that delivery happens. This is necessary because policy is full of contradictions and inefficiencies – for example, approval of local authority projects is ridiculously slow, there is insufficient co-ordination of the delivery of water and energy to zoned land and not enough zoned land in the right places, with local and national policies often seemingly pulling in the opposite direction.
The ‘system’ will hate the idea of a new department of infrastructure, or any kind of new oversight structure. The reaction of the Minister for Housing and his department to the Commission on Housing’s plan underlined this
As the commission said, far too little attention is paid to the costs incurred by not delivering housing quickly. Ireland seems to find reasons not to build houses. And the same applies to vital infrastructure in too many cases. A small Nimby minority can exercise an effective veto.
Such an executive would not be a magic bullet. There would be rows about where its mandate starts and finishes. But it could provide an important clearing house and put a focus on what needs to be done to bring the various parts of the system together. And it is a concept that could be expanded into a kind-of NTMA for housing and infrastructure, a small organisation outside departmental structures, but still attached to them. The NTMA - National Treasury Management Agency - was initially established in late 1990 to manage the national debt and has since taken on a range of other functions. It has benefited from the ability to hire expertise at market rates, a vital factor as the civil services - while having specialists in some areas - is based on a culture of “generalists” who get promoted across departments.
There is expertise around – in departments themselves, in Transport Infrastructure Ireland and, in relation to financing, in the National Development Finance Agency, which is part of the NTMA. The Department of Education seems to be good at building schools. It all just needs to be corralled and a political decision made that these things are going to happen, even if it upsets some people. There is no one way to do this – Sinn Féin, for example, in its housing plan suggests that one local authority might act a hub of expertise for authorities across the State – but it needs, in some form, to happen.
Because at the moment we are fooling ourselves. Ireland talks about meeting its 2030 energy targets, but on the ground just one wind farm project was approved in the third quarter of this year and planning for offshore wind development lags well behind what is needed. With a (very) fair wind housing completions might get to 34,000-35,000 this year, the latest CSO figures suggest, well short of the 40,000 that Ministers insist is still possible. In its dying days, the Government finally passed a new planning Bill, but a huge job of implementation lies ahead and critics fear some of its measures will not work.
The “system” will hate the idea of a new department of infrastructure, or any kind of new oversight structure. The reaction of the Minister for Housing and his department to the Commission on Housing’s plan underlined this. But we can’t just keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result – tweaking schemes here and there and spending more and more State cash in the hope that some of it sticks.
The wider social costs of the housing crisis are all too obvious. And now big foreign investors are putting projects on hold, or looking elsewhere, because they are losing faith in Ireland’s ability to deliver. “White-gloving” can take you only so far.
Ireland cannot control who wins the US election or the impact of a Trump victory on foreign direct investment. But it can start to get its own house in order. I don’t think a new department of infrastructure is the answer. But if politicians, in advance of the general election, are starting to realise that something fundamental is needed and not just a few new dressed-up housing schemes or new tax breaks, this is a good thing.