€14 billion shortfall for south region in National Development Plan

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

The Southern Region is going to suffer a €14 billion infrastructure funding shortfall under the current National Development Plan (NDP), according to the Southern Regional Assembly.

The Assembly is now calling for this imbalance to be addressed urgently as part of the NDP Review.

The Southern Regional Assembly is the regional tier of local government in the southern counties and includes the local authorities of Kilkenny, Carlow, Waterford, Wexford, Tipperary, Cork city and county, Kerry, Clare, and Limerick.

Despite accounting for 33% of current population and future growth to 2040, the Southern Region is only set to receive 17% of planned investment under the current NDP. The plan, which was launched in 2021 and runs until 2030, is the largest in the history of the state with a budget of €165 billion.

If funding for the Southern Region were proportional to that committed to the Eastern and Midland region, it would receive an additional €14 billion in planned capital expenditure.

“Under the current NDP, our region has benefited from investment in key projects across a range of sectors. However, the scale and ambition of committed capital investment does not address the marked deficiencies we have in key infrastructure areas, nor does it reflect the ambitions for our region under the National Planning Framework,” said David Kelly, Director of the Southern Regional Assembly.

The EU Commission’s Regional Competitiveness Index has ranked the Southern Region in the bottom 15% of all 234 regions across the EU 27 in terms of infrastructure provision, with a score of 51. This contrasts with the Eastern and Midland Region which ranks above the EU average with a score of 115.

Projects currently without a clear commitment to capital funding under the NDP’s capital investment tracker include the Cork Luas, the Cork City Northern Transport Project, and upgrades to the N25 (Cork to Waterford).

“The Southern Region has an enormous amount of untapped potential. The realisation of this potential through meaningful capital investment would achieve the stated objective of providing an effective counterbalance to the greater Dublin area, and would also have significant long term societal, economic and environmental benefits,” said Cllr. Ken Murnane, Cathaoirleach of the Southern Regional Assembly.

“It is critical that the Revised NDP fully reflects this ambition and that the necessary resources are provided to enable the ambition to be realised.”