Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for giving their time today. As was rightly said, in the past six months there has been a huge uptick in interest among the public and policymakers in terms of how we tackle climate change. It is welcome and timely that the witnesses are here, given the Government published its climate action plan earlier this week. As transport is the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it obviously has a key role to play in terms of how we tackle this.

There is huge emphasis in the Government plan on transferring people from fossil fuel cars to electric vehicles, and it seems to be one of its key points. In 2010, there was a plan to have 200,000 electric vehicles by 2020 but that was revised downwards in 2014 to 50,000 vehicles and further revised downwards in 2018 to 20,000. Therefore, despite setting our plans, we have failed abysmally in terms of achievement.

As somebody who piloted an electric vehicle for six weeks in the run-up to the local elections, I can see why people would not make the transition. Our infrastructure is extremely poor, in particular the number of charge points. I live in a village nine miles outside Mullingar and it has no charge point. When I come to Mullingar, the provincial town of County Westmeath with a population of 15,000 people, there are six public charge points but no high-speed charge point. If we are talking about enabling people to make the transition, we have a long way to go. It is not so much a question of encouraging people because there is a willingness, but there is the practical question of whether people can actually do this. After six weeks, I found myself asking whether I could survive with an electric vehicle and the answer at the moment, until the range improves, is "No".

One of the witnesses made the point that while it is welcome there are goals or targets, there are no timelines for implementation of these targets or any precise details. Page 90 of the Government's climate action plan contains a measure that will "Require new non-residential buildings with more than 10 parking spaces to have at least one recharging point installed by 1 January 2025". Therefore, there might be a car park with 200 spaces that has one charging point by 2025, which is just not ambitious enough. From what the witnesses have said today, electric vehicles should nearly be the last piece of the jigsaw whereas the Government policy seems to make it the first piece of the jigsaw.

To follow on from what one of my colleagues said earlier, it would be great to make public transport free but, even if that was introduced in the morning, we have no extra capacity on very many routes. Our ticketing system is not even integrated, never mind the system being integrated for users. That is another issue.

Dr. Devaney raised a point on forums for peer learning. Despite the obvious uptick - the results of the last local and European elections demonstrated there is further acknowledgement and awareness that this is a real issue - there is still huge scepticism on climate change and a huge reluctance as to how we are to make the transition so that it will not cost us. The Government said this can be done in a nudge, nudge way but I do not think it can be. Significant sacrifices will need to be made, which will cost money.

I would be interested to hear the witnesses' views on the Government's climate action plan. Perhaps I am being unduly hard on it, and coming from the Opposition benches, that may be natural. I would be interested to hear their views. I would also be interested to know if the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has had any engagement with the National Economic and Social Council in regard to its research, in particular how it can extract the NESC's key findings and implement them in Government policies. Given we have failed to achieve all the targets we have set ourselves to date, how would the witnesses prioritise the changes that need to be made? As an example, if any of them were Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport tomorrow morning, and had an opportunity to make three or four changes with immediate effect that, in their opinion, would give the greatest return in terms of reduction in carbon emissions, what would they be?