Mr. Conor Faughnan:

We were asked when we put forward suggestions for car-pooling and whether we received a response. People remember a scheme known as the Clare Street initiative, which was introduced about ten years ago by the then Minister of State with responsibility for the matter, Mr. Ivor Callely. The AA produced a document on the initiative at the time. I would be happy to share it with the joint committee and I hope members will read it because the scheme had considerable potential. The acid test for such a scheme is to ensure it does not inhibit the bus service. However, even within those constraints, the scheme had potential. We will revive the document and circulate it to the joint committee.

A couple of specific questions were addressed to the AA. Deputy Troy's question on Uber has been answered. Deputy Catherine Murphy stated that car usage is more important than car ownership. This goes to the heart of the transport conversation. Dublin's rate of car ownership is not untypical of any similar European city. Profile-wise, there is nothing unusual about ownership here. The issue is less one of car usage in an absolute sense and more about the tidal flow usage of cars for commuting. This is where one has people arriving in the city centre between 6.30 a.m. and 8.30 a.m. and then trying to get home between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. This tidal flow movement by car is the root cause of all of our transport problems in the city. Outside of those times, the city copes perfectly well. The issue, therefore, is to provide alternatives in order that individuals do not find themselves compelled to travel in an out of work by car. As I indicated, we have made this option inherently more difficult through our land use and planning strategies, which involve building further and further from the city centre.

Deputy Catherine Murphy also referred to the planning process. I am aware that the Dublin transport initiative and the Dublin Transport Office which emerged from it were being discussed before Mr. Aldworth arrived and started to take notes. As I stated, the M50 was built at a rate of 1 km per annum for 30 years, which is mad by international standards. One section of the M50, which approximates to the Dundrum to Knocklyon section, was supposed to be open earlier than the northern section but this did not happen because of an argument about compulsory purchase orders continued for five or six years before eventually being settled on the steps of the Supreme Court. Even now, one sees that this stretch follows an odd, S-shaped route that was chosen as part of the compromise that emerged from the argument on the compulsory purchase orders.

The reason the Red Cow Luas route travels through Citywest is that the route chosen was across a land bank that happened to belong to CIE at the time. This is a crazy approach to planning. If we wind the clock back 25 years, at that time, anyone who wanted to run a Luas line from Tallaght into the city centre would have built it through the Walkinstown roundabout to serve the residential areas on either side of that route. That route would have been only two thirds the length of the route that was eventually chosen.

The reason that route alignment was chosen was to match the landbank that already belonged to CIE. That is what I am talking about regarding land use and planning and how the tail tends to wag the dog in this city and country.

I have been living in Knocklyon for 20 years. We bought our first house and then a second house there. That area was green fields 20 years ago. When it was being developed people suggested that the alignment and space be preserved for a future Luas line but that was not done. It was filled in with development. When we focus on that area now it would be difficult to provide a Luas route because it was all filled in and now it can only be done either at enormous expense or with the provision of less efficient buses. I appreciate it is a very complicated area and does not lend itself to a glib solution, but one of the reasons it is complex is that we may have created a big problem for ourselves when the area was being developed.

Another point that was made is that we must reduce car usage to meet our climate change commitments. I would like to make a few points on that. First, I do not disagree and I support any and all measures we can take to reduce car usage, particularly for commuters, because we must do that. However, the private car gets a bad deal out of this because of all the sources of CO2 and climate change emissions in our country, the sector that has made the most progress is the private car and its contribution to emissions has been steadily reducing. When one gets statistics on this area, one will frequently see a reference to the transport sector, not to private cars. The transport sector includes road freight, rail and shipping and aviation is not included under any heading. We frequently hear that the transport sector accounts for 18% emissions and that we must do something about private car usage but we do not hear that the emissions being generated by private car component are steadily reducing. To put this in context, if we can imagine a family of four using a band B car that is bought now, a 162 D registered car which would be a decent sized family car, that car would have to clock up more 16,000 km per year before CO2 emissions from its tailpipe would match what the family produce through breathing in a year, yet we continually hear the private car being mentioned as if it was the only thing in the country that was contributing to emissions. If we are fair about climate change, even in its role in this conversation, then we are being singularly unfair to the private car. I do not deny that we have man-made climate change or the fact that we must meet our commitments. If there was no climate change I still think we would have to do that because fossil fuels are finite; Ireland does not own any but every time we put a litre of petrol into a car, it is money we have to give to an Arab sheikh or to somebody else. I would much rather we were doing that more sensibly and keeping the money in Ireland. There are many reasons we should be concentrating on reducing car usage, not least to improve the urban streetscape and so on. The issue of climate change in particular is too often used as an excuse to demonise the private car user and, in so dong, to ignore the real causes of climate change which are the real contributors of emissions from Ireland. That is an important point to make.

On the question about whether it is critical to have buses on College Green, I know that An Bord Pleanála will ultimately make the decision on that. I like the idea of having a lovely city centre space which, relatively speaking, we do not have in Dublin. I visited Montpelier recently, which is served by nothing but Luas-type trams and I believe its trams are the same make and model as the Luas trams. When one hears the bell on the tram give three dings, one would think one was in Stephen's Green. Those trams are throughout that city centre and it is a wonderful experience. The French have managed to create lovely open spaces. If College Green was done well, it could be lovely; I appreciate that currently it is critical to have buses there but perhaps it is far less critical to have cars. However, if we remove capacity from the transport network, we must give intelligent thought for what happens next. To pick up on Deputy Ó Cuív's point, Dublin is a retail and commercial centre also and we need to hear those voices. It is perfectly possible to make Dublin so park-like that people could have a picnic in College Green but we are in danger of killing the city if you do not properly listen to the voices that I sometimes hear disparaged as vested interests on the grounds that they invested money in Dublin so somehow their position is jaundiced. We have to listen to businesses, retailers, carpark owners and those who cause Dublin city to be the economic engine of the country. I accept that Dublin is not just for Dubliners. Neither is Dublin just for transport planners who love bicycles and the Luas. Dublin is an engine of economic growth and we have make sure that it continues to be.