Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am not a member of the committee but I very much appreciate the chance to speak. As the former Minister, Deputy Coveney, stated, this plan is probably the most important we have in this Dáil. I was hugely supportive of the approach to a national planning framework on the understanding that it was promoting a stopping of the sprawl and a reduction in the long and ever-lengthening commuting distances in this country, that we would genuinely set ourselves on a low-carbon pathway, and that it would evolve in a way that would not be top-down and would encourage bottom-up engagement in the long-term planning process.

I heard some of the speakers earlier. While all the rhetoric is right, the substance is not there. In all three objectives, what I hear and see is all waffle, all spin and no substance, and I will explain why. First, the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, stated the lesson we have to learn from the original national spatial plan is to align what we are actually doing with the plan. I do not see any alignment occurring, for instance, in the transport issue. If the issue is to stop the sprawl, there was nothing in the latest budget supporting that initiative. There is nothing in our transport plans which is about developing public transport and urban sustainable living systems. There was €3 million for cycling - wow - and there is how many billion euro for more roads.

This plan is the same. I looked in detail, asking where is the transport substance. It is all motorways. It is all more ring-roads. It is all about roads. Even in my own constituency, Dublin Bay South, the Minister wants to get another motorway under Dublin Bay connecting to the port. It is another €3 billion or €4 billion added to the jigsaw of the M50, a road network that is broken. It is not working because it is not sustainable.

I am sorry but nothing this Government is doing tells me it is interested in sustainable transport. I looked at it again in the context of my own city. Look at the mess they have made of the city centre with the Luas cross-city. One can no longer cycle around College Green. It is too dangerous given what they have created.

It is not as if they were not told to do it the other way - we were arguing to put urban planning into it and include the pedestrian and the cyclist - but nothing has changed. What has changed in the transport budget? When I look at it, all I see is roads – that is all we are doing. We do not have a single rail-based public transport plan. How is the Department going to reduce sprawl? How is the Department going to cater for all these people coming into the cities? The only plan is more ring roads. That is going to hit the M50 and it is not going to work. That is my first criticism.

My second criticism is that the same problem arises with climate issues. We all talk about decarbonisation, but there was nothing in the budget about it. I listened to the Taoiseach yesterday. He was asked questions after the storm on Monday. He said we were all doing great and that we have all sorts of ambitions. There is no ambition in this Government for climate action. There is no scale of investment. We are going to have electric vehicles but a public relations campaign is the best the Government has in mind - that is not good enough. I could go through every other sector. It is the same in energy, land use and farming. There was nothing on forestry in the budget. If we are serious about climate change, how in God's name could we have a budget that did not mention forestry?