The National Planning Framework - Project Ireland 2040 sets out 9 National Policy Objectives to support all-island cooperation across themes of: working together for economic advantage; coordination of investment in infrastructure; and managing our shared environment responsibilities.
My Department has a key role in delivering on a number of these objectives, working with Agencies under our aegis, State Owned Entities and other cross government agencies and counterparts in Northern Ireland:
- to work together for mutual advantage on environmental protection and management
- to work together to ensure effective management of shared landscapes, heritage, water catchments, habitats, species and trans-boundary issues in relation to environmental policy
- to strengthen all-island energy infrastructure and interconnection capacity, including distribution and transmission of - networks to enhance security of electricity supply,
- to develop a stable, innovative and secure digital communications and services infrastructure on an all-island basis
The delivery of these objectives will be achieved through a number of investment channels including my Department's annual capital ceilings as set out in the National Development Plan 2021-2030, the investment capacity of State Owned Entities and other funding mechanisms such as the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme 2. The detailed planning for a number of programmes under the new NDP are still being completed and the allocation of funding will be finalised pending the outcome of our planning process.