Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegations. Mr. Faughnan made a point about car ownership but it is more about car usage and giving people a choice. I remember that exact point being made when I was on the consultative panel of the Dublin Transportation Initiative, DTI, a long time ago. It is a question of how we are using transport modes. That particular initiative looked at land use and transportation planning and one cannot separate the two. Car use and transport modes have changed. Another factor driving that change is our obligation on climate change. This means if we do not invest in public transport, we will pay hard cash for failing to meet targets. That is another imperative on us to invest in public transport and provide a choice.

How can we tackle the delays in the planning process and make it more efficient? College Green is a critical transport corridor for buses. I am all in favour of pedestrianising appropriate locations. However, that location has particular constraints. What is the best way to deal with this location?

The National Transport Authority referred to ensuring 55% of trips to work in 2035, or even before that, are made by sustainable modes. What are the significant ticket items which could deliver that? Would a myriad of smaller ticket items deliver any kind of result?

On the transport integration group, I am all in favour of that kind of collaboration. One group that always gets missed out, however, is the service-user. When I was on the DTI, useful inputs were made to it by public transport users. There were ideas which a user would bring forward that would not necessarily be immediately obvious to a provider. Is that part of the institutional arrangement?

I was in Trieste recently which has a smart transport network. What is the strategy of moving towards a non-diesel bus fleet? I was a particular fan of the DART underground and was horrified last year when the proposal fell off the tracks. That was described by Irish Rail as the game changer. Do the delegations agree that would be the big ticket item?

Park-and-ride is an important initiative. There is much evidence that people use park-and-ride because of distance, off-peak services and capacity. What makes it attractive and unattractive? Making better use of the road infrastructure and public transport infrastructure is what we should be all aiming to achieve.