The systems we rely on to deliver Ireland's infrastructure were designed for a world that no longer exists, writes David Cox
Ireland's ability to deliver critical infrastructure, including the power, cooling, telecom and healthcare systems that keep the country running, is now under real pressure.
The critical infrastructure sector is no longer defined by capability or ambition, but rather uncertainty.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Ireland's stock of physical infrastructure now lags behind comparable advanced economies by around 32 per cent, with a further 27 per cent gap in quality, a shortfall that underlines just how far the system must evolve to meet modern demands.
Every day, delivery teams operate in an environment where global tariffs, energy costs and supply chain conditions shift without warning.
Energy inputs that underpin budgets can fluctuate overnight.
This constant movement has become the defining feature of our industry -- and the system built to deliver critical infrastructure has yet to catch up with it.
One of the biggest structural issues we face today is the gap between project award and mobilisation.
It's now common for three to six months, sometimes more, to pass before a shovel hits the ground. In that time, the financial landscape of a project can change completely.
Material costs rise, suppliers reprice and energy volatility resets the cost base. A few years ago, you could rely on a price being held for 90 to 120 days.
Now, you're lucky if it lasts six weeks. The result is constant revalidation, cost drift and frustration for both clients and contractors.
We're not losing projects at tender stage anymore, we lose them in the gap between decision and delivery.
Ireland's procurement and contracting systems were built for a stable world.
Unfortunately, that world no longer exists.
The National Development Plan recently committed €275bn for infrastructure investment by 2035.
Without more agile procurement, that capital risks being trapped in process rather than progress.
In a volatile market, fixed-price contracts don't deliver certainty, they destroy it.
They force contractors to build in contingencies or walk away from projects that no longer stack up and they leave clients exposed to disputes and delays when the numbers no longer make sense.
We need procurement systems that reflect how business is actually being done today. Systems that are ultimately agile, datadriven and responsive.
Contracts should recognise legitimate external pressures, not penalise them. Otherwise, volatility outside our borders will continue to translate directly into issues inside them.
For investors, that means less predictability, slower capital deployment and reduced confidence in Ireland's delivery pipeline.
Supply chain uncertainty is another daily battle.
Before Covid, critical systems like switchgear, UPS and cooling plant could be delivered within eight to 12 weeks.
Today, those same items can take 20 to 26 weeks and in some cases even longer.
That's half a year waiting on essential systems before a project can progress.
For delivery teams, it means constant rescheduling and resequencing just to keep work moving.
For financiers, it means capital deployed but unproductive, a direct drag on returns and confidence. Despite this change, most procurement and funding models still assume the old timelines.
By the time approvals and contracts are complete, we're already behind.
Early ordering of long-lead items, under shared risk agreements, is now essential if we want to keep projects moving at all.
Add to that Ireland's exposure to global energy markets and uncertainty compounds again.
According to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, our overall energy import dependency in 2024 was 79.7 per cent, up from 78.3 per cent the previous year.
Every spike in energy prices filters through construction and operational costs. Hospitals, data centres and labs are particularly exposed.
The challenge isn't just high energy costs, it's the sheer unpredictability. Volatility makes planning, pricing and investing harder across the entire ecosystem.
Ireland has world-class people, capability and ambition.
But the systems we rely on to deliver national infrastructure were designed for a world that no longer exists.
Uncertainty is now the only constant we can be sure of, whether that be in pricing, procurement, energy or supply.
The only variable we can control is how fast and how intelligently we respond to it.
Resilience isn't about building bigger, better or faster -- it's about building smarter.
We need to shorten decision cycles, modernise procurement and build flexibility into the process.