Dr. Larry O'Connell:

I will come back on that question and also refer to Deputy Coppinger's proposal for free public transport. The recent Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, conference was attended by the mayor of Vienna. Vienna did not quite introduce free transport. Rather, the authorities introduced a pass, costing about €300 for a year, covering all of a holder's public transport needs. Senator Feighan asked about costs. It would have to be analysed but the Viennese approach almost paid for itself. A big subvention was provided by the authorities but the uptake was huge. It was quite interesting to see what happened when an entry point was provided.

The essential issue and the view of the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, is that many issues around decarbonising transport will be complex. We need to get into the detail of how projects work. I am very interested in public transport. As was discussed earlier, part of the question is whether there are international examples. That will get us so far but the specific details will then become complex. The minute free public transport is offered, we will need much more of it. We will need more bus lanes. Then we will encounter the complexities of communities and how they will react. All sorts of risks will arise. Ticketing was mentioned. All of that has to be resolved. Safety issues arise when many more people are taking public transport or walking in cities. This is not an argument not to do it. This question goes beyond transport in a sense. As has been said, it will create costs for the Exchequer and raise issues around planning and community engagement. The NESC view is that if we are serious about climate, those are exactly the types of projects the Government must take on and analyse seriously. This project would be of interest to NESC. We need to get involved in initiatives with that degree of complexity and ambition.

As Dr. Moore noted, that project also depends on community engagement and a process of collaboration. We recently came across a project in Inchicore where the residents are proposing a contraflow system. That might allow public transport to operate by having lanes move in different directions at different times. That is what we want; somebody in the community coming forward with the solution. We must ask what type of process we need to create in local communities to get solutions on the table early. When NESC talks about the projects being complex we are not discouraging them. The question is how to delve into them. I am very interested in the suggestion of a session of one or two days discussing public transport. That is something in which NESC would be interested.