Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the contributions to this debate which have been very positive. I am interested in the electric car initiatives such as the one in Cork a few years ago called Drive4Zero, which promoted electric car use particularly in the city centre. Is the roll-out of electric cars moving ahead of the infrastructure?

Do the witnesses think there is a rural-urban divide in respect of climate action? This has been a unique debate. We have spoken about a carbon tax. Who will be most affected by that, young or old people? What would its effect be on them? We have spoken of moving from beef to wood. How would the rural economy survive by forestry? Would rural Ireland become a walking way or playground instead of active farmland? Will our society become more urban off the back of such policies?

We have heard people say that the ratio of investment should be two thirds in public transport and one third in roads. The biggest issue in rural Ireland is the lack of roads. Will that be our new approach? Climate action is a unique challenge but how do we bring the people, rural and urban, with us? That is the biggest issue I have seen in this debate. There have been many proposals but there is great fear in the farming community that the targets in Food Wise 2025 will impinge on the environment and they will be pulled back. There has been a real change in dairy numbers, more so than in beef numbers because it has been profitable and rural communities have survived on it. When this debate is over will the rural-urban divide be wider? Will the changes affect rural people more than urban?