Government and construction firms need to focus on 'readiness' this year, to ensure they are ready to deliver on major building and infrastructure projects in the future.
That is according to the 2026 annual review from professional construction services firm Aecom Ireland.
It predicts construction output will grow by 4% this year, while inflation in the sector will stand at 3%.
"That will be driven by an increase of more than 10% in the public sector capital programme to €18.8 billion," said John O'Regan, director and country leader at Aecom Ireland.
Despite significant investment, it also expects the level of housing completions to remain well below demand.
And while it notes plans by Government to speed up the delivery of major infrastructure projects, the time it will take for those changes to be implemented mean "existing deep-rooted constraints continue to slow progress."
"We're all very aware of the really major infrastructure and housing programmes that are out there; in the transportation sector - Metrolink, BusConnects, the DART expansion; in the water sector - the Great in Dublin drainage project, the water supply project; and the big housing programmes and so on," he said. "It does take time for those projects to reach the point where they'll hit site and actually impact on construction output."
In the meantime, Aecom says that the industry should spend this year focusing on "readiness" to ensure that, once the various planning and regulatory hurdles are cleared, they are in a position to rapidly make progress on vital projects.
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"When you look at the projects... the size, the complexity of them is at a different level to what organisations have been used to delivering," he said. " So strategic preparedness means getting their organisations in place, the people in place, the governance in place, the processes in place.
"The scale of delivery over the next 10 years is going to be very different to the scale of delivery over the last 10 years," he stated.
He said there has already been a significant amount of work done around these plans and projects - and ensuring projects can progress as quickly as possible. He said this focus on acceleration needed to continue in the months ahead.
However there are also global factors that could have an impact on the industry's ability to deliver, with rising geopolitical uncertainty one again having the potential to shape activity this year.
"When we published our report this time last year one of the risks we flagged was exactly that - the geopolitical uncertainty," he said. "And when it comes to investment, everybody likes certainty.
"But certainly through 2025 we saw continued investment, we saw the exchequer returns continuing to be good. So we obviously hope that will continue in '26."
