Infrastructure politics and Ireland

Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister (Taoiseach), has announced a €34 billion scheme to upgrade transport infrastructure in Ireland. The term “upgrade” is probably a misnomer if you consider that in many instances there is no infrastructure to upgrade.
Problems:
– the figure of 34 billion although high will probably end up being a lot higher. The Irish government has a frightening tendency to allow these kind of projects to take longer than expected and to run well over budget
– the proposed Dublin metro will involve digging up large parts of the city and will disrupt business
– connecting the Luas (tram) lines had originally been proposed
– most of the other improvements were previously rejected
– it will take years for this to be implemented
– it will cost more than they project
– Who will pay for it?
Irish government amuses me at times. How can they expect any economy to survive in the longterm if there is little or no long term investment in infrastructure?
So many of these projects seem to be years behind the rest of Europe.