Ms Laura Burke:

I am not ideological in this area. What strikes me, in the context of all of these things, and we had the discussion on transport previously, is that the issue tends to come back to money and costings. We have had recommendations in previous reports on transport moving away from buses in Dublin using diesel because there would be a co-benefit in air quality. There is a leadership piece there as well as the climate piece. If one is given a certain amount of money and one can buy so many buses that use diesel or a lesser number that are electric or hybrid vehicles then it makes decisions much more difficult. I agree with the Senator in the context of actual purchases and projects. One needs to bring in externalities. One also needs to be costing for win-wins but it does come to Department of Finance appraisals.