Mr. Hugh Creegan:

There were many questions that interact with us. We did an assessment of light rail and it is included in the transport strategy. Deputy Connolly has a different view but we tried to assess the evidence and formulated our conclusions from that. With respect to climate change obligations, everything in the strategy is focused on assisting us in meeting climate change obligations. We are putting in a really efficient public transport system that will bring more users to that system and that can only be beneficial from a climate change perspective. Similarly, with cycling and walking, we are putting in decent networks. From a sustainability perspective, a mode shift is fundamental to tackling climate change.

Others will be able to answer the Deputy's question as to why park-and-ride was not rolled out in the past. It has been mentioned by several people that for park-and-ride to work successfully with a bus system there must be bus lanes and bus priority; it simply will not work otherwise. Nobody will get out of a car and get into a bus just to be stuck in the same traffic. We need bus infrastructure, including bus lanes and priority through the city centre, to be in place before we can successfully introduce park-and-ride. We can put a site in tomorrow but it would not be successful because there is no priority through the city.