Building Europe Better: Reforming EU rules for housing, infrastructure, and growth
Europe needs to build, but procedure and cost get in the way. Targeted directive changes can address these issues without jeopardising environmental protection.
Infrastructure
The limit on Ireland’s potential is its ability to deliver water, power, services and transport to its growing population.
Progress Ireland’s research is focused on the speed and efficiency of infrastructure delivery. Why are some countries able to build at a fraction of the cost of others? What skills, partners, institutions and laws do we need to change to rival the best builders in the world?
Europe needs to build, but procedure and cost get in the way. Targeted directive changes can address these issues without jeopardising environmental protection.
Ireland needs big ambitious housing schemes, but these schemes are hard to pull together. They involve local governments, infrastructure providers and lots of landowners. Land readjustment is a tool that aligns these groups on a single scheme.
The management of infrastructure is highly idiosyncratic. There’s no single playbook to copy. However, the most efficient builders share certain characteristics. They adhere to a few principles.
Ireland’s great challenge is to build infrastructure. It should do what has worked before, in this country and across Europe. It should give TII the autonomy it needs to deliver.
The most efficient builders of complex infrastructure have one thing in common.