Richard Boyd Barrett: Who Benefits from the Infrastructure Bill?
Richard Boyd Barrett challenges government measures to speed up delivery of critical infrastructure in his address to the Minister, arguing the reforms risk favouring private developers and weakening climate protections. He uses Cherrywood as a case study to question whether the legislation will actually deliver promised community facilities or simply accelerate private profit.
Cherrywood example
Richard Boyd Barrett highlights Cherrywood - the country’s largest residential development - where residents still lack a town centre, pedestrian links and sports pitches despite extensive housing construction and rezoning. He argues developers have profited while essential local amenities remain unbuilt.
Funding priorities and local needs
Boyd Barrett points to a planned private complex of ice hockey rinks and a convention centre at Cherrywood that received rezoning support from councillors and may be seeking state funding, allegedly in the order of 60 to 80 million euro. He contrasts that with the unmet demands for AstroTurf pitches and a bridge that local clubs and residents actually want.
Climate and energy concerns
The speaker warns the bill could be used to sidestep climate obligations - mentioning LNG and disapplying statutory constraints - and objects to handing strategic energy and wind sites to private and international interests. He also raises the impact of large data centres, suggesting they will absorb a growing share of national electricity without delivering commensurate public benefit.
Public interest vs private profit
Boyd Barrett questions whether the proposed coordination and removal of 'obstacles' aims to help communities or to prioritise private developers and multinational companies. He presses for clarity on whether the measures will guarantee public benefits such as affordable housing and local facilities, rather than simply easing developers’ paths to profit.
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Right Minister, in principle the idea of getting government bodies, state bodies to coordinate in order to accelerate the delivery of critical infrastructure is a good idea and removing unnecessary obstacles to the development of critical infrastructure. I will say things that I have concerns about this legislation, but what I'd love to know is might this be helpful in, for example, dealing with, and this gets to the heart of my anxieties and concerns about what your real motives are here and what your real objectives are here. You see, I've raised a number of times the fact that the town centre in Cherrywood, the biggest residential development in the country, on which really the entire development was predicated, was that there was going to be a town centre so you didn't have to get in your car, you could walk everywhere in ten minutes because there was going to be community facilities, shop facilities, all the rest of it, right? And the developers built all the houses, made a lot of money, they're still flipping properties, they're still getting rezonings and changes to the SDZs, whatever developers asked for in fact they get from the state, and they've made a lot of money, but the town centre, which the people who've moved in there need, the amenities, the critical infrastructure, nothing. Nothing. Well, sorry, one Tesco Express, right, and a big, big hole in the ground. And the developers don't want to build a town centre because it's just not really profitable for them. Building the houses, flipping properties after they got planning permissions and they start to sell properties again after getting a recent up-zoning of the SDZ to higher densities, more money for them, but they don't want to build a town centre, and because of the way, well, you tell me, is this going to help get them to deliver the town centre? They won't even build a bridge from one part of Cherrywood to the other part, which is needed, right, to link the two together because it's not profitable for them, right, and they're allowed to get away with this, and we've been screaming about it, the residents are screaming about it, they're allowed to get away with it. Now that's the kind of sort of knocking heads together, getting the partners together I'd like to see. Are you going to do something about that? Or here's another bit of coordination, right, in the same area, where there's all this residential development, we need AstroTurf pitches, right, sports facilities. The clubs are crying out for them, crying out for them. They can't get money or AstroPitches for love nor money from the council, right, even though there's all this residential development, but then I hear, I hear that private developers have decided in the Cherrywood site that they want to build two ice hockey rinks and a convention centre for about 240 million. They want rezoning for it, which they got, Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gaelic Councillors voted for it, and they've asked the state for, we don't know how much, and the state won't even tell me. I've asked two parliamentary questions, and you just won't tell me how much they've asked you for, for a private development for an ice hockey stadium, right, now nobody in the area has asked for an ice hockey stadium. They want the town centre, they want AstroPitches, they want their bridge, they want the affordable housing they were promised, they didn't ask for an ice hockey rink. Now I'm not against ice hockey, don't get me wrong, but your councillors voted to give them the zoning they wanted, and you won't even tell us how much money they have asked you for, but the rumour is 60 to 80 million euro, right. There's football clubs can't get an Astro for less than a million, but we might be given a private consortium, 60 to 80 million to build ice hockey rinks that nobody asked for. Now that worries me, but it speaks to who you prioritise, right, because when you say about this, this legislation, oh, we want to remove obstacles, it doesn't seem to be anything about that. No, no, it's the objectors, the objectors are the problem, the people who put in submissions to developments, not, for example, the 90,000 planning permissions that have been given and granted for houses in this country, but property developers sit on them, don't do anything with them, because it's profitable to sit on them and wait for the prices to go up or stay up or flip the properties, no, nothing done about that, but what you are giving out is about the objectors, and you don't want oversight in terms of climate obligations, the disapplication of section 15, right, so that sort of stuff, and to me that just smacks of LNG, LNG, that's what I hear, we don't want any of the obligations under climate legislation to impact on our ability to develop liquid natural gas infrastructure, and I do ask the question, seriously, is this going to apply to private for-profit developments? Even the wind resource, and we need renewable wind resources, right, but why is it you've given away all the sites to private companies? So when the wind energy and our marine resources are developed for wind energy, we get nothing from it, we're giving it to international consortiums, even the French state, the French state is going to own more of the wind produced off the east coast of Ireland than the people of Ireland will, because you've given away the sites to the French state energy company. So I seriously worry what your motives are here, what the objectives, I'd like to hear some soothing words of reassurance that it's actually going to deal with the issues, but the fact that you hand over responsibility to private developers for so much of the infrastructure, whether it's housing, whether it's energy, and of course the data centres, yeah, I mean Jesus, by 2030 it's estimated 30% of the electricity in this country is going to go to the data centres, hoovering up the energy that we're creating for the benefit of some of the wealthiest companies in the world, but doing very little for employment and serving no real purpose other than to make profits for these companies. So yes, you know, knock heads together, remove unnecessary sequential planning decisions and so on, but I seriously concern that you are actually just trying to remove climate obligations through the back door and that your over-reliance or prioritisation of private developers' interests mean it'll be them who benefit from it rather than the public interest.
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