There is a lamentable history of capital projects incurring vast overshoots on the initial cost estimates, most recently the new €2.25bn figure for the National Children’s Hospital, which was approved by Government on the basis that it would cost €650m.

The overshoot is thus the enormous sum of €1.6bn. That was before the contractors, BAM, lodged another claim of €853m for the build.

The news media managed to give greater coverage to the bicycle shed at Leinster House, a micro-scandal at just €340,000, on the basis that everyone understands bicycle sheds.

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Many projects in Ireland are actually carried out within budget

The Oireachtas, which is the ultimate overseer of the Office of Public Works (OPW), could cover this modest figure from personal resources, a whip-around at each meeting, but the overshoot of €1.6bn for the children’s hospital is an extraordinary event in Irish financial history.

Other projects will have to wait and no public inquiry, thus far, has been initiated.

Many projects in Ireland are actually carried out within budget; things like school buildings or routine road repairs, although the big one-off schemes are regularly in the headlines for delays, big overruns, or both.

The history of this apparently successful execution of a large, once-in-a-lifetime, public investment is instructive

An example of a major once-off project, not quite on the scale of a big national hospital, but expensive enough, which was delivered on time and on budget is the new runway at Dublin Airport.

The runway is now unlikely to be deployed to its planned capacity because Fingal County Council has chosen to place a ceiling on passenger numbers.

The history of this apparently successful execution of a large, once-in-a-lifetime, public investment is instructive.

National facility

Dublin has always been the busiest airport in Ireland and its share has grown, partly because of the inter-urban road improvements which have made it readily accessible by car and bus from all across the island.

It has also benefitted from the end of the compulsory Shannon stopover for transatlantic flights and has become a connecting point for travellers from Britain and Europe, greatly to the advantage of Aer Lingus.

Located on the M50 orbital motorway to the north of the city, all of the main motorways feed into the facility whose front entrance is on the M1 Belfast route.

As much as 10% of users are from Northern Ireland – Dublin attracts more patronage from NI than Belfast city and about half the volume at NI’s biggest airport, Belfast International (Aldergrove), second biggest on the island but which has only about one-fifth the volume of Dublin.

The smallest – Donegal – has two departures (subsidised) every day, three on odd days, while Dublin has a departure every few minutes

It is a national rather than a local facility and expects to handle around 35 million passengers in 2025, 10 times the figure for Cork, which is the next busiest airport in the Republic.

The smallest – Donegal – has two departures (subsidised) every day, three on odd days, while Dublin has a departure every few minutes.

In the 1980s, the old runway configuration at Dublin had run out of capacity and the current main east-west runway, called 10-28, was constructed.

But the owners of the airport, the State body Aer Rianta (now DAA) realised that a second parallel east-west runway to the north would eventually be needed many decades into the future.

It very wisely bought the land it would require for modest money from the farmers, threw a fence around it, cut silage for a couple of weeks every year, and waited.

Two runways

With two parallel runways Dublin can now accommodate double the recent volume – perhaps 60 million passengers or more per annum.

Initial plans to complete the second runway were deferred following the banking bust and the project finally delivered for the expected budget of €325m, and on time.

Fingal County Council chose to impose a cap on passenger numbers – an unusual choice versus a limit on the volume or timing of aircraft movements, when Terminal 2, which opened in 2010, was given planning permission.

Fingal County Council was aware of the plans for the second runway 40 years ago. Its concern was not airport noise but road traffic capacity in the vicinity of the terminals, hence the cap on passenger numbers.

However the opening of the Dublin Port Tunnel (which should not have been a surprise either), planned long before completion in 2006, has altered the surface access picture considerably.

Dublin Airport is also served by scheduled bus routes from all 32 counties

Heavy trucks now reach the M50 quickly and avoid the city centre altogether, while numerous bus routes serve the airport from around the city.

Dublin Airport is also served by scheduled bus routes from all 32 counties and has a higher public transport share (buses included) than several large European airports which enjoy direct train and tram connections.

The second runway at Dublin was cheaper than most main runways currently contemplated around Europe – if a third runway is ever built at Heathrow, it will entail the purchase and demolition of adjoining suburbs and cost several billion pounds.

If we can deliver large, once-off, infrastructure at bargain prices in Ireland, why not use as intended?