Programme Status Breakdown
Delay Distribution — Top 12 Schemes (Weeks)
Announced vs. Current Cost — All Schemes (€m)
Cost Escalation Forecast to 2032 — Active Schemes (€m)
National Children's Hospital — The €2.2bn Scandal
Announced in 2012 at €983m. By 2024 the estimated cost had reached €2.2bn — a 124% overrun — making it the most expensive children's hospital per bed in the world. Contractual disputes, ground conditions at the St James's site, and systemic procurement failures drove the overrun. The Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) found multiple governance failures. Still not fully open as of 2025.
MetroLink — Tripled Before a Metre Was Dug
The Dublin MetroLink (Swords to Charlemont) was announced in 2018 at €3bn. By 2024 the NTA's revised estimate had risen to €9.5bn — a 217% increase — without a single tunnel bored. Geotechnical surveys, EIA processes, planning appeals, and inflation all contributed. Target delivery has slipped from 2027 to 2035+. ROI's most expensive infrastructure project by a considerable margin.
Galway Ring Road — 20 Years of Planning, Still No Road
First proposed in 2006 to relieve Galway city's chronic congestion. Eighteen years later, the N6 Galway City Ring Road is still locked in judicial review (2024), with An Bord Pleanála's original approval challenged on environmental grounds. Cost has risen from €800m to €1.4bn. Galway remains one of the most congested cities in Europe — and the ring road is the longest-delayed road project in the Republic.
M20 Cork–Limerick — Two Decades of Studies
The M20 motorway between Cork and Limerick has been in planning since 2003. Despite a 2015 target for completion, the route is now expected to open in the 2030s. Cost estimates have risen from €1.6bn to €3.5bn. Over 20 years of planning, TII route selection, EIA and public inquiry have consumed tens of millions in consultancy fees — yet no motorway has been built.
National Maternity Hospital — Moving Goalposts
The replacement for Holles Street, announced at €300m in 2017, has ballooned to €700m by 2024 — a 133% overrun — before a brick has been laid at the new St Vincent's campus site. Site controversies, legal challenges, and repeated planning changes drove delays from a 2023 target to 2027+. The C&AG highlighted the lack of a fixed-price contract as a key risk.
ROI — Worst Cost Record in the British Isles
With a CPD-C score of 86 and CPD-D of 85, the Republic of Ireland has the worst combined infrastructure delivery record across Britain and Ireland. The average cost overrun across the 40-scheme portfolio is 123.7%. Ireland builds — but typically at double or triple the announced price. The pattern is consistent: optimism bias at announcement, scope creep in planning, and no fixed-price accountability in delivery.
| Scheme | Status | Announced | Current Est. | Variance | Delay | Detail |
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Methodology & Sources
CPD Index (0–100): CPD-C (Cost Performance) and CPD-D (Delivery Performance) are scored 0–100 where higher = worse for this tracker (inverted from the Scotland tracker convention). ROI's CPD-C of 86 means 86% of the scoring criteria for poor cost performance are met — reflecting the chronic overrun pattern across the portfolio. CPD-D of 85 similarly reflects severe and widespread delivery delays. Combined CPD of 86 represents the worst score in the British Isles series.
Clock: The live clock shows the cumulative active cost overrun on delayed/paused schemes with confirmed cost increases, compounding at a blended BCIS-equivalent Irish construction inflation rate of 4.2% per annum. Epoch: 05 May 2026 00:00 IST. Completed schemes are excluded from the active overrun base. The clock is illustrative — it reflects the real cost of delay and inflation to Irish taxpayers on unresolved projects.
Cost data: Announced costs are taken from original Irish Government press releases, Project Ireland 2040 documentation, NTA and TII programme documents, and Dáil/Oireachtas statements. Current estimated costs are drawn from C&AG reports, NTA/TII annual reports, HSE capital programme updates, PQ responses, RTÉ and The Irish Times investigations.
Delay data: Weeks of delay calculated from original target completion date versus revised target or current date where no revised target exists. Where no completion date was formally set, delay is classified as TBC.
Primary sources: Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) · National Transport Authority (NTA) · Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) · HSE Capital Programme · Project Ireland 2040
Disclaimer: This tracker is an independent professional assessment prepared by QuintinQS. It is not affiliated with the Irish Government or any public body. All figures are drawn from publicly available sources and are correct as of the date shown. Cost projections are indicative only.
CPD — about this acronym: CPD stands for Continued Prolonged Delays — a deliberate reference to Northern Ireland's Central Procurement Directorate, rebranded as Construction, Procurement, Delivery. The name is intentional across this British Isles accountability series.