Ireland is entering one of the most ambitious periods of infrastructure investment in its history, with more than €275bn planned by 2035 and a clear Government commitment to accelerate delivery.
Yet the Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan makes one thing clear: legal reform and regulatory simplification alone will not unlock progress. A critical barrier sits not in engineering, policy or funding but in public acceptance, understanding and support.
This is explicitly recognised under Pillar 4: Public Acceptance, which calls for clearer communication, stronger national narratives and more transparent engagement to support timely delivery.
This is where strategic infrastructure communication, naming, framing and long-term storytelling, becomes fundamental to removing friction and building confidence.
Infrastructure Has a Communication Problem – Not Just a Delivery Problem
Across Ireland, people experience disruption long before they experience benefit. Without a clear explanation of why investment is happening and what it enables, pain quickly overwhelms progress leading to frustration, distrust and disengagement.
Megaproject research consistently shows that transparent, emotionally resonant communication reduces resistance, strengthens advocacy and turns communities into supporters rather than opponents.
Yet in Ireland, infrastructure communication remains under-invested, reactive, fragmented, poorly designed and overly technical. The default tone is crisis, not clarity. Infrastructure does not just need better delivery. It needs better storytelling – and better execution.
Why brand matters in infrastructure
Brand is often misunderstood in infrastructure, reduced to a logo on hoardings or a project website. In reality, brand shapes the reputation that connects policy intent to public experience. It provides clarity on why a project exists, what it delivers, how it will be experienced and when benefits will be felt building trust long before construction is complete.
A strong infrastructure brand helps to:
1. Turn multiple projects into one clear programme
Major programmes lose impact when communicated as isolated works — “a hole here, a diversion there”. The public experiences cumulative disruption, not cumulative benefit. Cities and utilities that adopt umbrella names and narratives — such as the UK’s The Great Grid Upgrade or Australia’s Victoria’s Big Build — achieve stronger acceptance and clearer understanding of the long-term mission.
2. Make infrastructure understandable and human
Trust is built through warmth and competence. Public bodies that communicate with empathy, logic and clarity build credibility and long-term support. Infrastructure does not need to be communicated in the same way it is engineered. Creativity and individuality can help projects connect with communities and communicate values long before completion. Vattenfall’s Wind Farmed Seaweed Snacks campaign shows how insight-led, irreverent creativity can reframe complex infrastructure challenges.
3. Build the pillars of persuasion
Persuasion in infrastructure is built through credibility, stories and facts, delivered consistently over time. Global Infrastructure Hub¹ guidance shows that confidence grows when communication is two-way, transparent and ongoing.
Credibility comes from openness and accountability. Stories translate complexity into meaning, helping communities see why investment matters. Facts provide reassurance, grounding communication in evidence on progress, timelines and benefits. Together, they build trust and sustain support across long delivery timelines.
4. Emphasise action and achievement
Belief is sustained when progress is visible. The Association for Project Management² shows that resistance declines when communication focuses on what has been delivered, what is happening now and what comes next.
Clear narratives, supported by tangible proof points from milestones reached, benefits realised to progress made turn intent into confidence. The Grand Paris Express demonstrates how sustained investment in communication can make one of Europe’s largest infrastructure programmes understandable, credible and supported.
5. Reframe the challenge
Public debate around infrastructure too often defaults to cost, disruption and risk — focusing on who pays rather than why investment is needed. The Accelerating Infrastructure Plan explicitly calls for a shift towards clearer, long-term narratives that explain purpose and value, not just price.
Reframing means moving the conversation from short-term cost to long-term benefit: what infrastructure enables, why it matters to daily life, and what happens if it is not delivered. Treating infrastructure as a brand helps make this shift — defining purpose, delivery, distinctiveness and benefit over time. When purpose leads, investment is understood as necessity rather than burden.
Recently, media coverage of grid upgrades focused on individual cost rather than collective purpose-what the investment enables and why it matters.
Brand is not marketing. Brand is infrastructure for understanding.
The opportunity ahead
Ireland is at a pivotal moment. Regulatory reform will shape the operating environment.
Coordination reform will shape the system. But communication reform will shape public belief, legitimacy and momentum.
The Accelerating Infrastructure Report sets the stage. The next phase must translate ambition into public understanding at scale.
Infrastructure will not accelerate without public acceptance.
Public acceptance will not grow without clear storytelling.
And clear storytelling will not happen without deliberate investment in brand, campaigns, names and communication systems built for the long term.
Ireland now needs to tell the story of infrastructure — not just build it
Infrastructure is more than pipes, wires and roads. It is a promise- a statement of what a society believes it deserves. When communicated well, infrastructure becomes a shared project that communities believe in. When communicated poorly, it becomes a battleground.
The next decade of Irish progress depends on our ability to bring people with us and that means treating communication with the same seriousness as engineering, planning and investment.
RichardsDee is deeply committed to helping shape this future: creating brands, stories and campaigns that turn infrastructure into a narrative of national confidence, progress and possibility.