Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I like Dr. Moore's views on the forum for peer learning for villages, towns and cities. We have been quite lazy. Certainly local authorities have been quite lazy. Many years ago, we got funding for cycle paths and the local authorities built footpaths. There are much stricter conditions in place now. We are talking about cities and it is great to see so many cyclists in Dublin. I live in a rural area. Carrick-on-Shannon is a central town for north County Roscommon and south County Leitrim. It would only take 45 or 50 minutes to cycle from Boyle to Carrick-on-Shannon or vice versa. Much more can be done, as is shown by the model of Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands. People could be able to cycle between little villages. Many things are happening but the infrastructure is still not in place.

Dr. Moore's suggestion of allowing towns and villages to come up with ideas for helping the environment would be a great incentive. Perhaps those villages and towns could save money or learn from one another. We are on the cusp of something great. As I have said, I have seen the approach taken by most local authorities. They use the funding for cycle routes to build their own infrastructure, which is wrong. There is a much better way.

We all want to use public transport. There is a squeezed middle out there. I do not have free transport. Living in Dublin I can get a Leap card and take the bus, which is great and good value. However, we do not use the trains or buses as often as we might. Let us suppose there was an incentive. Let us say €5 was charged for every train journey. What would that cost the taxpayer? Would it cost billions or millions? Is that incentive provided in any other country? The train service is not as bad in Ireland as in the UK. Is there any incentive that could motivate people in the middle ground who do not have annual tickets to get off the roads?