Copyright thejournal
We need your help now Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open. You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough. If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it. One-off amount I already contribute Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you. An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more. Investigates Investigates Money Diaries The Journal TV Climate Crisis Cost of Living Road Safety Newsletters Temperature Check Inside the Newsroom The Journal Investigates Daft.ie Property Allianz Home The 42 Sport TG4 Entertainment The Explainer A deep dive into one big news story Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture have your say Or create a free account to join the discussion Advertisement More Stories Collison on his business interview series 'Cheeky Pints'.Youtube Billionaire mindset What Stripe's John Collision gets right - and wrong - about Ireland's infrastructure failures A 2,500-word analysis by the tech billionaire has caused a stir in Irish political circles. 12.30pm, 29 Oct 2025 Share options IT’S NOT EVERY day that a tech billionaire other than Elon Musk wades into Irish politics, so the intervention by Stripe co-founder John Collision has made a lot of people in political circles sit up and take note. In his 2,500-word weekend essay in the Irish Times, Collison examined Ireland’s failings on housing and infrastructure. The 35-year-old Co Limerick native, who set up payment technology firm Stripe with his brother Patrick in 2010, argued that over-regulation and a multiplication of State agencies and non-governmental organisations have resulted in crippling constraints on large-scale infrastructure projects. The piece has stirred debate at the highest levels of Irish politics, with Tánaiste Simon Harris among those who applauded Collison for the “thought-provoking” analysis. Thoughtful and thought-provoking piece. Too many layers, too many structures , processes that take too long. Time for the pendulum to swing back. This will be a big part of my work and focus with colleagues in the months ahead. https://t.co/Mvzp9lMQiM— Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) October 26, 2025 Following on from this, The Journal asked a number of experts in a range of fields what they made of Collison’s piece and whether it captures the problems facing Ireland. Inertia in planning system Collison listed off several infrastructure projects facing long delays, including a water supply plan linking Dublin to the Shannon, and the Greater Dublin Drainage Project. Barra Roantree, Assistant Professor and Director of the MSc in Economic Policy, Department of Economics at Trinity College Dublin, told The Journal he broadly agreed with Collison’s assessment, particularly around the slow pace to get planning approval for largescale works. While Ireland badly needs new infrastructure for the coming decades, the speed and scale needed is being made “impossible” by regulations that have grown over time, Roantree said. Roantree cited the example of the Bus Connects rollout in Dublin. “A key component is the construction of 12 bus corridors. These were initially announced in 2018 but have spent the last seven years crawling through a planning system that demands thousands of pages of reports on the potential environmental impact of each scheme,” he said. As a result, the first bus corridor is not expected to be completed for another three years – a decade after it was first announced. Boosting Cabinet to make decisions One of the most significant calls Collison makes in his piece is about giving ministers more more power to get big projects the required approval. Collison urged the Government to draw inspiration from Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney, who has introduced legislation granting himself and senior ministers the power to give big infrastructure projects every permit or licence they may need to get over the line. This would steer big projects past any potential judicial reviews that are taken in the High Court, which add months if not years to a decision. Emma Howard, an economist and lecturer at TU Dublin, said there is merit to this – but it still would need constraints. “There are definitely cases where rebalancing individual rights against the greater good could be positive,” she said. “But what do we want to push through? Is it data centres or the Dublin Metrolink,” she asked, outlining that the latter would help Ireland meet goals of reducing congestion and also emission targets. “When you’re looking at things that are going to be environmentally damaging or are not going to improve lives beyond a specific sector or cohort, it’s harder to justify,” Howard said. Design for the Dublin Airport Metrolink station.Metrolink Despite having criticisms of the analysis, Michael Byrne, a lecturer in political economy in University College Dublin, also said that this proposal to empower Cabinet should be explored. As the executive branch of Government, Byrne said it should have “the power to realise policy priorities in a relatively unobstructed” way. Advertisement “This is important to get things done, but also for political legitimacy,” Byrne argued. Centralising decision making Among Collison’s arguments, which are backed by a think-tank that he supports called Progress Ireland, are that “environmental goals have created stasis” and have stalled the delivery of critical infrastructure. Concerns were raised by some of those we talked to about proposals to centralise powers, particularly over how they navigate legally binding climate goals. Orla Hegarty, a lecturer in architecture at UCD, said there is a danger some of the changes being proposed would result in power located “in a few hands”. “Are we to roll back to a time of quick windfall profits, with the true economic, social, and environmental costs being borne by others, and for decades after,” Hegarty asked. Hegarty and Howard both pointed to a need to still abide by climate targets in any plans to develop housing and infrastructure. A recent Climate Advisory Council report warned that Ireland could be looking at a bill of up to €26 billion if it fails to meet EU climate targets in the coming years. “We can’t ignore our emission targets, economically as well as environmentally,” Howard said. Opposition to big projects Where does opposition to infrastructure come from? Collison asserted that we don’t see big protests against new infrastructure projects or intense debate in council chambers. Green Party councillor in Dun Laoighre-Rathdown Lauren Tuite, who previously advised Eamon Ryan as Transport Minister, claimed this ignored how many of the issues that reach “fever pitch” at a local level are entirely about infrastructure. She cited plans for cycling infrastructure in Deansgrange, Ballyfermot, Bray, Co Wicklow and Salthill, Co Galway that received strong push back by local opposition. “I imagine it’s easy for tech billionaires to dismiss these local rows, but the manner in which politicians – local and national – respond to them, nurture them, inflame them, join them as co-litigants even, is instructive,” the Killiney-Shankill councillor said. While Tuite believes Collision missed the mark on where responsibility on this lies, she added that she hopes his analysis will “encourage some reflection among representatives who have distilled a career for themselves out of local fury”. Do politicians have their hands tied by agencies? In Saturday’s piece, Collision claimed that politicians have their “hands tied to the mast when it comes to annual budgeting, which justifies the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council”, leaving the state “on auto-pilot” as a result. Howard, who called the analysis “myopic”, said this failed to account of the many times in recent years that the Government chose to disregard the financial watchdog’s advice around annual budgeting. She further contested Collison’s point that it’s not delegation of political responsibilities causing people to become disillusioned, but the “short-termism” of government decision-making. “We are supposed to have five-year budget and spending plans but this has not happened. The updated National Development Plan had a real lack of detail where the Government didn’t talk about what the main priorities are. Howard said the fear is that this because the final details will “based on horse trading around constituency priorities with Independent TDs supporting the Government “So we don’t have that national vision, it’s this patchwork of what’s politically popular and what’s politically viable.” Struggles in Housing A building site with in west Dublin.Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Collison’s piece discusses the Government’s housing struggles, and noting how delays to expansions of Dublin’s water network may limit future construction. For Byrne, the lecturer in UCD, the analysis “ignores” critical reasons for the weaknesses in our housing system. The “most important” of these is that Collison missed the impact of the 2008 financial crash and what that meant for building houses. Related Reads Why Ireland’s property bidding system drives prices and FOMO - and how it could be fixed Opinion: Throwing more money at it won't solve the housing crisis. We need more workers It could soon be more difficult to take a judicial review as new law to refocus on ‘common good’ Byrne said this left us with insolvent banks, many bankrupt developers and a desperately weakened labour supply due to thousands of construction professionals emigrating. “The State reduced social housing output by 90%,” Byrne noted as one of the results of the crash. “In short, if we want to know why it’s hard to get things done, we should look to the consequences of the particularly feral form of financial capitalism which dominated politics and economics from the 1980s until the financial crisis,” Byrne said. The main cause of weakened state capacity across advanced economies is “not unaccountable agencies, but decades of neoliberalism”, Byrne said, referring to the political viewpoint that prioritises free-market action in many sections of the economy. Further concerns were raised around the analysis by Paul Davis, strategic procurement lecturer and head of the management school in Dublin City University. Davis emphasised state intervention and strategic long-term planning as a way of dealing with infrastructure slowdown. He added that rising costs that hit projects at the procurement needs to be tackled by the Government in that same long-term manner to make construction more attractive. “Public procurement creates the marketplace. But procurement requires risk and once I go into the marketplace, I have to have that vision of what I want to achieve in order to give the ability to people to manage that risk,” Davis said, adding that this could help to control costs on ballooning projects. While Davis agreed with Collison’s view that Ireland has ended up with weak infrastructure despite a period of strong growth, he believes Collision’s view is less radical and instead similar to “what we’ve seen previously”. “I think it’s reiterating the same institutional messages,” Davis told The Journal. “He should have been braver. What is the country we’re going to be living in by 2050 going to look like? We may or may not have a United Ireland but we’ll probably have a more integrated economic policy. “We’re certainly going to have a very diverse society due to increased immigration to deal with the issues that we’re talking about,” Davis said, referring to labour shortages affecting parts of the economy. “That’s setting out a roadmap but these are hard conversations. At least we are discussing it now.” Political reaction There have been contrasting reactions from political parties in Ireland. Eoin Ó Broin, Sinn Féin housing spokesperson and the author of two books about the housing and planning system in Ireland, slammed Collison for the critique. The Dublin Mid-West TD said it was “heavy on highlighting problems that we all know exist but light on providing credible solutions”. He added that it was “neo-Tory” in nature and was a “not so thinly veiled clarion call to return to the bad old days of deregulated planning, zoning and development that have caused our country and our communities so much hardship”. On the other hand, Fianna Fáil Wicklow-Wexford TD Malcolm Byrne is seeking to invite the Stripe boss to address his party’s TDs and senators. Byrne, who chairs the Oireachtas committee on AI, said Collison’s piece captured his frustration over what he called the “overly bureaucratic nature” of the planning system, combined with a “lack of ambition by some in positions of responsibility in the public service”. He said that if a relevant State agency is not asking how it can best deliver more affordable homes and critical infrastructure, then “they are part of the problem and we need to remove either the agency or those in charge”. “John Collison’s intervention is welcome as is that of anyone from any background who wants to roll up their sleeves and suggest ways that we can tackle the big challenges facing our Republic,” Byrne said. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Support The Journal Eoghan Dalton View 19 comments Send Tip or Correction Embed this post To embed this post, copy the code below on your site Email “What Stripe's John Collision gets right - and wrong - about Ireland's infrastructure failures”. Recipient's Email Feedback on “What Stripe's John Collision gets right - and wrong - about Ireland's infrastructure failures”. Your Feedback Your Email (optional) Report a Comment Please select the reason for reporting this comment. Please give full details of the problem with the comment... This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy before taking part. Leave a Comment Submit a report Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines. Damaging the good reputation of someone, slander, or libel. Racism or Hate speech An attack on an individual or group based on religion, race, gender, or beliefs. Trolling or Off-topic An attempt to derail the discussion. Inappropriate language Profanity, obscenity, vulgarity, or slurs. Advertising, phishing, scamming, bots, or repetitive posts. Please provide additional information Thank you for the feedback Your feedback has been sent to our team for review. Leave a commentcancel Newly created accounts can only comment using The Journal app. This is to add an extra layer of security to account creation. Download and sign into the app to continue. Access to the comments facility has been disabled for this user View our policy ⚠️ Duplicate comment Post Comment have your say Or create a free account to join the discussion Billionaire mindset Housing Crisis how to build Infrastructure Infrastructure crisis John Collison News in 60 seconds DJ Carey's sentence hearing postponed until Friday after court informed he is in hospital election fallout Micheál Martin says it's 'not fair' to suggest he doesn't listen to Fianna Fáil backbenchers 11 mins ago Ré Nua ó Thuaidh Conspóid comharthaíochta Grand Central Station le réiteach ag an gCoimisinéir Gaeilge nua 38 mins ago your stories Have you lost your job recently? We want to hear from you 49 mins ago Central Criminal Court Trial of man charged over 79 historical sexual abuse allegations set for next June 54 mins ago Tolls to increase on 10 national roads including the M50 from January Weather Warnings Status Yellow warnings issued for six counties tomorrow English tourist dies from injuries after alleged Temple Bar assault Extreme Weather Why is Hurricane Melissa so strong and how will it impact Ireland? At least 300 jobs at risk as Fastway parent company enters receivership Belgium v Ireland, Nations League play-offs more from us Investigates Money Diaries The Journal TV Journal Media Advertise With Us About FactCheck Our Network FactCheck Knowledge Bank Terms & Legal Notices Terms of Use Cookies & Privacy Advertising Competition more from us TV Listings GAA Fixtures The Video Review Journal Media Advertise With Us Our Network The Journal FactCheck Knowledge Bank Terms & Legal Notices Terms of Use Cookies & Privacy Advertising Competition © 2025 Journal Media Ltd Terms of Use Cookies & Privacy Advertising Competition Switch to Desktop Switch to Mobile The Journal supports the work of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman, and our staff operate within the Code of Practice. You can obtain a copy of the Code, or contact the Council, at https://www.presscouncil.ie, PH: (01) 6489130, Lo-Call 1800 208 080 or email: mailto:info@presscouncil.ie Report an error, omission or problem: Your Email (optional) Create Email Alert Create an email alert based on the current article Email Address One email every morning As soon as new articles come online
