Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and thank Dr. Barrett for the presentation, which is useful and has a focus on the issues that are of importance now and in respect of which time is running out. Some of these issues are not so easy and some of the threats to the national development plan are not easy to resolve. In the short time that I have, I will try to address some of them.

First, Dr. Barrett is right about the price of houses. The more houses that are built, the greater the tendency for existing houses to become cheaper. The danger that has been mentioned is whether a person is situated in a place where they do not need to move on, or if they are capable of withstanding the reduction in the value of the property in which they live. I do not think it is as serious as it looks because there will always be movements in house prices as the demand continues, and the demand will continue for some considerable time.

It is equally important to recognise that we have to increase the output of house-building as a matter of urgency in the shortest possible time, and we have to blend in with this the climate change issues that we have to deal with and ensure, insofar as we can, that we comply with and meet the targets. We also need to be careful that we do not run ahead of ourselves and create further problems in the economy because, by reacting too severely to the need to comply with the proposed regulations and targets, we can damage our economy. I would like to see scientific evidence to measure the extent to which the motor car sector, the agri-food sector, the transport sector or the road-building sector might be impacted.

For example, I spent time over Christmas travelling on roads from the midlands to the west of the Shannon. There is a serious need to upgrade the road system, with particular reference to the impending need for motorways in areas that never got the benefit of surges in the past. There is an opinion somewhere that we will never need them so we are not going to build those roads, but I believe that would be a mistake and we would pay a high price for it. We will need roads, particularly in areas that have not had the benefit of upgrades to the road system for some considerable time. That includes the midlands and if not all of the south, which has improved in recent times, then the part of the south that is nearest to the midlands, and also the west. We have to programme that into the system and see how we will deal with that.

We cannot plan for a system where we opt for all-rail for commercial transport. I do not think that would work, and it has to be very carefully examined before we embark on something that could have serious consequences. For example, it is fine to have a roll-on, roll-off system in France or Germany, and a truckload of merchandise in Paris can go to Moscow if someone is so inclined, and it does not have to stop every 50 or 60 miles. That needs to be borne in mind. To provide the infrastructure in a smaller country would be fairly dramatic and we would need to think carefully about it.

I am also thinking about the fact the transport system and the trucks we already have on the roads are doing a very good job in transporting food and other merchandise daily, on time and in good condition. We have to acknowledge and recognise that. We need to ask ourselves, for example, if it is going to be economically viable to put a series of stops in between and we need to ask the customers if it suits them.

Those are my initial comments. I am in favour of complying with the regulations to reduce emissions as quickly as possible, but I am not in favour of disabling some of our industries by trying to achieve something in such a hurry that we damage our economic entity.