Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I was struck by the statement that "Ireland’s current policy direction predominantly emphasises technology transitions rather than wider systemic transformations." I thought of agriculture when that statement was made. I agree we have incentivised farmers to engage in unsustainable farming. It is not the farmers' fault. The whole system is set up such that they get paid for farming in an intensive, industrialised way.

The answer is quite simple in a way, in that one needs to then incentivise farmers to farm in a very different way, with regenerative farming, and so on.

I have a separate question, in that both Professors Daly and Caulfield made the point earlier about the sale of fossil fuel cars where last year four times as many fossil fuel cars and sport utility vehicles, SUVs, were sold compared to electric vehicles. I listened Claire Byrne's radio show this morning where they were talking about the increasing car sizes. It was interesting. They spoke about it on the radio as if people wanted to have bigger cars without any real sense that it is the car manufacturers which are deciding that people will have bigger cars. A Golf car of today compared with a Golf of ten or 20 years ago is substantially bigger. Cars have gotten bigger and it is not the consumers who have driven that but it is the car manufacturers. The increase in size, weight, the SUVs and so on are then undermining any efficiency gains being made. There is the role of advertising and sponsorship by the fossil fuel industry and car manufacturers, in particular, in shaping some of that illusion of consumer choices. Do our guest speakers have any ideas on what can be done to tackle this because, clearly, a fossil fuel car bought today is still going to be on the road in ten years’ time when we are very much going to be at an even worse point than, unfortunately, we are at today? Do our witnesses have any ideas about what can be done to rapidly impact on this issue?