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

This is a fairly self-explanatory amendment. An earlier comment referred to the scale of the challenge we face. No climate assessment was carried out in respect of the current national development plan and Project Ireland 2040. We learned that in our hearings. We also learned that even with all the projects that are included, the National Transport Authority, NTA, is projecting a 30% increase in transport emissions, rather than the 30% reduction that we need. We heard from the Secretary General of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport that the Department has no plan or understanding of how to bring emissions down. Clear and irrefutable evidence of this was presented. No major public transport projects were built in Ireland last year, and none will be built this year or next year. More than anything else, in my own city of Dublin we are widening all the approach roads. That is what is happening in reality. We know how difficult it is to change this approach because we heard it in our own committee hearings. All of these roads are popular. The most difficult thing for this committee to achieve would be to stop the development of a road.

The national development plan was not assessed. When it was assessed later as part of our work, we realised that it would deliver 30% of the emission reductions targets we have committed to for 2030. We have a 100 million tonne gap to close and there is no clear sense of how we are going to do so. We did not do a lot of work on reducing emissions in transport planning. We have to go back and do more work in respect of transport. We have a significant problem. If we are going to accept the Citizens' Assembly recommendations, the reality that we have to switch our transport spending to the ratio the amendment outlines must be front and centre. The ratio of spending on roads to public transport is currently 2:1. We have to switch that. If we do so it will be a better outcome because our people are being stuck in traffic. Dublin faces congestion costs of €2 billion, a figure which is growing every year. We have to be ambitious in switching the transport budget. I could make the same comment with regard to the other amendment.