Paul Murphy: Critical Infrastructure Bill and Climate Law

Thanks a lot for coming in. I want to ask some questions about the Critical Infrastructure Bill. So the Bill gives the Minister almost unfettered discretion about what to designate as critical infrastructure. I wonder, does DPIR have a list of the types of infrastructure that will be deemed critical? Thank you Deputy. I suppose the Bill imposes on the Minister the ability to bring to government a list of designated projects. So they're designated by government order, just to be clear I suppose on that framework. In terms of do we have in the back of our minds the first list, I mean I think we have clear ideas about the areas of greatest interest, in the sense that for the last number of years and in the National Development Plan Review we've been really clear that transport, energy and water for housing and competitiveness are the key infrastructure priorities and they're what we fund and I suppose in terms of designating critical projects we would expect critical projects to be dominated by those areas. But the process hasn't, I mean I suppose we have to wait for the Bill to become law in order to go through the process. In that list in the back of your mind, does it include data centres or may it include data centres? Well again it's not me that chooses the list, but data centres have not been part of the discussion, although grid capacity certainly has. And another aspect of the Bill, I mean one of the, from my perspective, worst, obviously you can't comment on it, but worst parts of the Bill is the disapplication of section 15 of the Climate Act, so the Climate Act, that's the section that says you have to abide by, requires public bodies including the Minister to perform their functions in a way that is consistent with national climate policy. My question is, where did this come about? Because the Climate Infrastructure Bill kind of flows from the paper accelerating infrastructure, and it wasn't recommended in accelerating infrastructure that section 15 of the Climate Act be disapplied. So where did it come from if it didn't come from accelerating infrastructure? So I suppose the whole concept behind accelerating infrastructure plan is, as you know, it's to delayer and simplify and in a reasonable way speed up infrastructure projects, and I suppose in that context all things are looked at. The disapplication of section 15, obviously a policy matter, but it does reflect decisions that have been taken in another piece of legislation. I'm just trying to remember what the other piece of legislation was. I think it's in relation to the temporary energy generation, but I can't swear to that, but there was a model in an earlier piece of legislation where disapplication in order to ensure that the project got delivered was implemented. So I guess, you know, it is, you know, it falls to be considered because we're looking around at all options to speed up the process. But my question is, so you had the accelerating infrastructure report produced by your department in December 2025, that didn't recommend the exclusion of climate obligations, but then when we get the bill it is included. Was it the minister who wanted to include it, or it flowed from your own internal discussions? So obviously, Deputy, it's a policy matter and all policy matters are decided by government and by ministers. Yes, but I'm asking a particular question about how this particular section of the critical infrastructure bill ended up in being, as in, when your department drafted the report that laid the basis for the bill, this didn't exist as a recommendation, and then it became a recommendation. Was that because the minister said, I'm making a policy choice and this needs, this should go in, and then of course I don't blame you for following your minister, it's your job to do that. Is that what happened? So as I say, Deputy, to the best of my knowledge, it was just something that fell to be considered as the bill was being developed. I mean, obviously the bill was recommended by the report, but then the department would start looking at options. I don't have to hand, because I haven't really prepared for that, but I don't have to hand a timeline of ministerial involvement in the discussion, so I can't really, I just don't have that to hand in terms of a timeline, but certainly for the reasons that I explained, I suppose, we're, you know, it's, we're certainly trying to implement the Accelerating Infrastructure Task Force, but as we implement it, new things come up all the time. So new ideas about how to accelerate, new ideas about what would it take to cut, and we have a number of groups that work on that with us. And do you consider our legally binding climate obligations to be red tape that can be cut? The legally binding climate obligations under the Climate Act are policy, and I definitely can't comment on the demerits and merits of policy. But, no, it's law. It's not policy, it's law. Do you understand? Law is an expression of policy. You don't think you can comment on law? Well, I, to the extent that... I'm not saying you can say about whether it's a good law or a bad law, that would be policy, but you accept that our climate obligations are legally binding? I accept that our climate obligations are legally binding, and I accept that the application of our climate obligations lead to an amount of processing and procedure. I'm not suggesting that's necessarily red tape, but I'm suggesting it's worth evaluating those processes and procedures, as we are throughout the area of infrastructure, to see whether the objective is met by the actual practice. Okay. And can I put to you what Friends of the Earth and Antoshka have said about this? They say, legislating to bypass the Climate Act risks breaching the Minister's statutory duty to ensure all ministerial functions remain consistent with the national climate objective. The Minister cannot legally fulfil this obligation while simultaneously proposing a bill designed to facilitate increased emissions and circumvent climate oversight. Was this pointed out to the Minister by the department in the process of your discussions? So, I'm not familiar with that point, Deputy, or that opinion, but I don't also... I mean, I'm not necessarily involved in all discussions with the Minister on the development of the Act, but that issue has not arisen to the best of my knowledge. Okay. Can I ask, have Progress Ireland done any lobbying of your department in relation to infrastructure? No, they haven't, as far as I know, but I am meeting Progress Ireland tomorrow, I think. To discuss what? I think, you know, we meet people that are connected with infrastructure, so we're going to meet them. I think they have ideas about infrastructure, particularly around grid development. Interesting. Okay, I move to a different topic, which is the cuts that are being imposed on departments, supposedly in response to a Department of Education overspend. And my question is, on what basis did your department come up with the different targets of cuts? They range from, what, 0.1% to 1.4%, and what basis did you decide department of transport gets a 1.4% cut, and another department gets a 0.1% cut? So, effectively, it was an approach, obviously, to raise 446, but there were areas that needed to be protected or that didn't make sense to adjust. The social protection non-pay allocation, department of health pay allocation, specialist disability services, justice group pay, housing non-pay, and pension funding was protected. And once you took them out, then the rest was simply a proportionate adjustment in the baseline budgets. Okay. It's the same amount across the board once you take out all the pay which can't be cut. Frontline pay, yeah, and social protection rates, yeah. But that isn't necessarily equitable in the sense of different departments do different things and have a greater or lesser reliance on people as a main expenditure, in a sense? So, it does, and clearly it does end up with different percentage adjustments in different departments because of that, yes. But not just different percentage, potentially different impacts. I mean, we're measuring apples and oranges, I suppose, but I mean, is there not some policy consideration here? Like, take, for example, department of transport is getting a high level of percentage cuts as a whole, right? We're in a fuel crisis, we're in a climate crisis, we're meant to be encouraging people to get out of private cars into public transport as a result of that, and yet the department of transport is getting the highest end of the cuts. Is there no policy consideration or consideration of our broader government policy and therefore adjustments? You're simply having a kind of flat rule across the board. So, that's correct, deputy. I mean, the object of the exercise is to maintain spending within the expenditure ceiling to protect frontline services and vulnerable spend. And the consequence of that is that the money does come from other areas. And I suppose, you know, again, to say that the intended increase in public spending in 2027 is much larger than the adjustment to the base involved in the levy, and I suppose that the prioritisation piece really occurs in the context of the estimates discussions and discussion around the budget. So, where the issues that you raise fall to be considered, I guess, is as we distribute the budget allocations in the 2027 budget. OK.