The Cabinet has approved a series of measures to speed up-planning decisions and prevent delays in new road and other infrastructural projects envisaged in the u £40 billion National Development Plan.

The legislative and judicial measures, which are likely to prove controversial, are included in a report prepared by the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructural Development.

The report, as revealed in The Irish Times last November, includes recommendations to streamline the way planning cases are heard and to establish a separate division of the High Court to deal with planning and infrastructural issues.

The Taoiseach said the proposed changes would be "implemented in an integrated way across many State institutions and will help to ensure the timely delivery of the targets of the National Development Plan".

A series of amendments are to be tabled to the Planning and Development Bill, which is currently been debated in the Dail. Amendments will include a provision to give clear legislative direction that the High Court should deal with planning cases "as expeditiously as possible".

In future, an applicant for a judicial review of a case will be required to have previously shown an interest in the case "unless there is good and sufficient reason as to why he or she did not do so".

The Government hopes that within three months it will be possible to list "significant planning and infrastructure cases for judicial review" and to treat these separately from other cases.

From May, the President of the High Court will be able to assign a judge to hear major planning cases when necessary.

The Cabinet has asked the All-Party Committee on the Constitution to consider the need for updating provisions concerning planning controls and infrastructural development.