EY Ireland NDP Insights: Key Takeaways on Housing, Energy, and More

NDP Review 2025 - Key Takeaways:

We welcome the Government's renewed commitment to infrastructure investment as part of the National Development Plan Review 2025. With a focused approach to tackling the critical infrastructure challenges, key takeaways from today’s announcement include:

• Overall: The NDP Review 2025 demonstrates a clear commitment from Government to fund infrastructure across all sectors. Housing, Energy, Water and Transport are the clear focus areas/sectors based on this revised public investment plan. In total, €275 billion of investment funding is included in the plan to 2035 (comprising, Exchequer, non-Exchequer capital funding and equity funding). In 2026-2030, €102.4 billion is committed to capital expenditure across Departments. On top of this, a further €10 billion in equity funding is being provided between 2025-2030 to support the delivery of large projects in the water, energy and transport sectors.
  
  EY view: Total Exchequer funding of c. €20bn p.a. compares very favourably to past years (doubling investment levels versus 2021 levels). The provision of equity funding of this scale is unprecedented and demonstrates a very strong commitment to immediately addressing key focus areas (energy and grid capacity) and strategic projects (large scale water infrastructure and MetroLink).
  
  
• Housing: €28 billion has been allocated for Exchequer Funding Housing investment for the period 2026 - 2030. This funding is provided to support the delivery of an annual average of 12,000 new build Social Homes by 2030, as part of the Government’s ambition of the delivery of 300,000 new homes by 2030.  
  
  EY view: Whilst the significant allocation of funds and strategic investment in infrastructure supporting housing supply is welcome, the key now is to convert this investment into tangible on-the-ground delivery. This will involve addressing challenges related to planning and regulatory delays, the provision of enabling infrastructure, construction capacity, and labour shortages. The revised NDP outlines the co-ordinated efforts underway to reform planning, accelerate wide scale adoption of modern methods of construction, and adopt an integrated approach that links housing delivery with enabling infrastructure – all of which are required to build upon this real investment milestone.
  
  
• Transport: €22 billion has been allocated to the Department of Transport between 2026 and 2030. €2 billion has been earmarked from the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund (ICNF) for low carbon transportation, including MetroLink.
  
  EY view: Government recognises the vital role that Transport plays in delivering a prosperous, equitable and Climate Resilient economy, evidenced through the allocations (over 20% of total spending in period 2026-2030). Further, MetroLink is a megaproject of unique scale in an Irish context and requires full Government backing – the inclusion of €2 billion of funding for MetroLink will send a clear positive message to the wider market regarding Government’s support and commitment to this project.
  
  
• Water Infrastructure and Energy: A total of €7.7 billion of Exchequer funding will be allocated to the Department of Housing and Local Government for water investment for the period 2026-2030.  In addition, the Government has committed to injecting €2 billion equity into Uisce Éireann in 2025 to enable the delivery of 300,000 additional homes by 2030 and €2.5 billion of non-voted (equity) funding will be allocated for large scale water projects over 2026 and 2030.
  Energy: a total of €3.5 billion in equity (effected through increased Government shareholdings) has been earmarked for ESB Networks and EirGrid energy projects.
  
  EY view: Over €13 billion of investment in water and energy over a five period recognises how vital utilities’ infrastructure is in supporting the economy and the critical part it plays in addressing the housing crisis. This is very much welcomed.
  
  
• Social Infrastructure: The NDP has allocated €9.3 billion to the Department of Health and €7.5 billion to the Department of Education in Exchequer funding for the period 2026-2030.
  
  EY view: Investment in social infrastructure is essential to support a growing population with changing needs.  The investment will be used to address the growing need for school places in primary, post primary and special classes as well as investment in higher education and particularly in the research sector.
  
  
• Prioritisation: The NDP outlines capital investment limits for 2026-2030, requiring individual Departments to detail with certainty their priority programmes and projects over the next five years. This is to be completed in three months by the time of the Budget.
  
  EY View: This pragmatic approach (where Departments will be required to prioritise the projects most critical and ready for delivery), recognises the scarce resources available and the risk of trying to do too much at the same time. This approach should maximise the delivery output in the medium term and we look forward to learning more on these priorities in the coming weeks.
  
  
• Accelerating Infrastructure: The NDP Review 2025 also outlines the ongoing relevant reforms which include; the establishment of an Infrastructure Division in DPER and the establishment of an Infrastructure Taskforce to identify the most critical barriers to development; and the reforms of the planning system through the Planning and Development Act 2024 (including clearer pathways and timeframes for planning consent and reform of judicial review processes to reduce legal and procedural delay)
  
  EY view: The Infrastructure Taskforce has a key role to play in ensuring the investment by Government is optimised and that infrastructure delivery is accelerated. Reforms can take time to enact and implement – therefore, Government will need to ensure any required reforms to accelerate delivery are quickly implemented to deliver on its plan.