Project case studies
Chaos to clarity
When a citizen flags a contentious public project — a rail line, a hospital, a capital programme — we decompose it into sourced facts: timeline, ownership, environmental and heritage impacts, EU obligations, comparable delays, and the citizen objections themselves. Every fact carries a citation.
Matches against name, sector, status, tagline and summary - ranked by relevance.
health · Announced
Autism Assessment and Intervention Pathways Protocol
HSE's first standardised, all-ages autism assessment pathway — launched 26 May 2026 by Minister Norma Foley after a four-month slip from Bernard Gloster's promised 9 February 2026 go-live, against an Assessment of Need backlog of 20,209 people now beyond the statutory six-month deadline.
transport · Construction
BusConnects Dublin
NTA's ~€2bn+ programme to rebuild Dublin's bus network around 12 Core Bus Corridors totalling roughly 225 km of bus-priority and cycle infrastructure.
health · Announced
CAMHS — Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Ireland's publicly funded Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), operated by the HSE, has faced sustained criticism over waiting lists exceeding 4,500 children, the closure of 257 cases without treatment, and ongoing geographic inequity in service provision, despite a succession of policy frameworks and additional funding since 2006.
transport · Announced
Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan — Local Link
The NTA's Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan (2021) committed to provide all rural communities with access to public transport for the first time, expanding the Local Link rural bus network from 139 routes to over 1,000 services nationally. By 2026, over 80 new routes have been added under Phases 1–3, though rural transport poverty and geographic isolation remain significant challenges.
transport · Construction
DART+ Programme & DART Underground
Iarnród Éireann and the NTA's multi-billion-euro electrification of Dublin's suburban rail across four sub-projects, plus the long-running history of the shelved DART Underground tunnel.
other · active
Defence (Amendment) Act 2024
The Defence (Amendment) Act 2024 removed the statutory requirement for a UN Security Council or General Assembly mandate before Irish troops can deploy abroad, replacing it with a requirement to act 'consistently with the principles of the UN Charter' — a change opponents describe as the effective end of Ireland's triple lock on military neutrality.
health · Construction
Disability Capacity Review 2021-2032
Department of Health's 2021 plan to close the chronic capacity gap in adult disability services through 2032, repeatedly underfunded against target by successive Budgets and shadowed by an unresolved Section 39 pay-parity dispute.
other · Consultation
Drug Law Reform — Citizens' Assembly on Drug Use and Decriminalisation
The Citizens' Assembly on Drug Use reported in October 2023, recommending a health-led approach and personal possession decriminalisation. The Government pursued a partial decriminalisation pathway through the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Act, passed in 2025, with implementation underway as of 2026. Ireland recorded 218 drug-related deaths in 2022 (CSO).
education · Construction
Grangegorman Development
The 30-hectare regeneration of the former St Brendan's Hospital site in Dublin 7: TU Dublin's consolidated city campus, the relocated National Forensic Mental Health Service, the HSE Phoenix Care Centre, and a long, contested set of public-amenity commitments — library, primary school and public realm — that have arrived years after the academic buildings.
health · Construction
Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 — implementation and reform
The post-Repeal abortion-access regime in Ireland — operational since January 2019, found by the statutory Marie O'Shea Review (April 2023) to fall short on three-day waiting periods, fatal foetal abnormality criteria, criminal sanctions and geographic access — and most recently the subject of a Holly Cairns-led reform bill defeated 85-30 (36 abstentions) on a Government free vote on 13 May 2026.
housing · Announced
Housing for All
Housing for All is the Government's 10-year housing strategy, launched in September 2021, targeting 300,000 new homes by 2030. Annual completions have consistently fallen short of the 33,000-per-year target, with 29,000 delivered in 2023 and affordability and social housing delivery remaining central concerns.
other · Announced
International Protection and Asylum System (IPAS)
Ireland's international protection system faced a surge in applications from 2022, reaching over 14,000 new applications in that year alone. The International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) was overwhelmed: by late 2023 applicants were housed in tented encampments, and by 2026 a backlog of over 32,000 outstanding applications persisted. The EU Migration and Asylum Pact and domestic processing reforms are intended to address systemic delays.
other · Construction
Irish dual-use export licensing regime
Ireland's export licensing regime under EU Regulation 2021/821 for goods with civilian and military uses, including documented exports to Israel and transparency gaps highlighted by TDs and civil society.
transport · Design
Luas Cork (Cork Light Rail)
An 18.6 km east-west light rail line from Ballincollig to Mahon Point — committed in CMATS 2040, with an Emerging Preferred Route published April 2025, revised April 2026, cost re-stated as €1.8–€2.5 bn, Railway Order targeted 2028, construction 2031, first trams 2036.
transport · Design
M20 Cork–Limerick Motorway
An 80 km tolled motorway upgrade of the N20 between Cork and Limerick — Ireland's largest road project, on a corridor with collisions four times more likely to be fatal than the national average and where the rail alternative was rejected in 2024.
transport · Planning
MetroLink
Dublin's planned 18.8 km, mostly-underground metro line from Swords Estuary to Charlemont, granted a Railway Order in October 2025 after two decades of stop-start planning.
housing · Announced
Mica and Pyrite Defective Concrete Blocks Redress Scheme
An estimated 7,000–10,000 homes in Donegal, Mayo and other counties were built with defective concrete blocks containing mica or pyrrhotite that cause progressive structural collapse. The Government's Enhanced Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme, covering up to 100% of remediation costs, opened in 2022 and is estimated to cost up to €2.7 billion over its lifetime.
other · Announced
Mother and Baby Homes Commission — Report and Redress Scheme
The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes published its final report in January 2021, documenting the deaths of approximately 9,000 children across 18 institutions between 1922 and 1998. The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme, established by legislation in 2022, has been rejected by many survivor groups as inadequate and discriminatory.
digital · Construction
National Broadband Plan
25-year State contract to bring high-speed fibre to ~564,000 premises in rural Ireland through National Broadband Ireland, currently mid-rollout with cost and schedule slippage.
education · Announced
National Childcare Scheme and Core Funding
The National Childcare Scheme (launched 2019) and the Core Funding universal provider subsidy (launched September 2022) are the Irish government's main instruments for reducing childcare costs. Despite combined annual expenditure exceeding €1bn, full-time childcare costs average around €750 per month and the sector faces a workforce crisis with average early years worker pay of €12.90 per hour.
transport · Re-announced
Navan Rail Line
Re-announced 2026 commuter rail link from Dublin (M3 Parkway) to Navan, routed past the Dunsany rewilding project.
health · Construction
New Children's Hospital
Ireland's single national paediatric hospital at the St James's site, Dublin 8 — the textbook Irish cost overrun: originally ~€650m in 2014, now €2.24bn+ and counting.
other · Stalled
Occupied Territories Bill 2018
Frances Black's 2018 private member's bill to prohibit trade in goods and services from territories illegally occupied under international law; passed Seanad and Dáil Second Stage but blocked at committee under successive FG/FF governments citing EU exclusive competence.
other · Stalled
Representative advocacy for children with disabilities - the Personal Advocacy Service that never commenced
Section 5 of the Citizens Information Act 2007 inserted sections 7A-7F into the Comhairle Act 2000 to establish a statutory Personal Advocacy Service. Nineteen years later it has not been commenced. The 20 May 2026 Joint Committee on Disability Matters session is the latest in a chain of calls to commence it.
other · Abandoned
Sanctions against the State of Israel Bill 2025
Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd Barrett and Ruth Coppinger's November 2025 People Before Profit-Solidarity private member's bill to prohibit all trade, investment, financial dealings and state-linked economic activity with Israel — the broadest of three Opposition Israel-sanctions instruments tabled in the 34th Dáil and defeated at Second Stage on 20 May 2026 by 77 votes to 62.
other · Construction
Shannon Airport US-military stopovers + activist trials
Since 2002, Shannon Airport has hosted continuous US military transit despite Ireland's stated neutrality; activist prosecutions for inspections and protests run on multi-year delays through the Limerick, Ennis, Dublin and Supreme Court system.
health · Announced
Sláintecare
Sláintecare is Ireland's 10-year cross-party plan to move from a two-tier, insurance-dependent health system to a universal single-tier service. Passed by the Oireachtas Health Committee in May 2017, it remains only partially implemented: waiting lists exceeded 900,000 in 2022 and the planned regional health structures remain in transition.
education · active
Special Class Allocations & Inclusion Policy
From an initial 399 special classes announced for 2025/26 in April 2025, the NCSE list was progressively expanded toward the mid-500s by mid-2025 while teaching/SNA allocations to individual schools arrived too late for summer recruitment; principals also flagged a new 'inclusive' class category being introduced without an accompanying circular, guidelines, or published clinical research base.
other · Announced
Uisce Éireann (Irish Water)
Uisce Éireann (formerly Irish Water) was established under the Water Services Act 2013 as Ireland's national water utility, consolidating services from 34 local authorities. The introduction of domestic water charges in 2014 triggered mass protests, subsequent abolition of charges in 2017, and a decade of restructuring that has left a €13bn NDP capital programme underway against a backdrop of persistent EPA enforcement actions for wastewater non-compliance.