Dr. Diarmuid Torney:

I have a couple of comments. First, picking up on this discussion, this is one of the weaknesses or lost opportunities in the climate action plan. The strength, picking up on what Dr. Moore stated earlier, is the Government's structure. It is good at putting in place a robust reporting and accountability framework. The plan is to be updated annually, and reported on quarterly. There is an implementation board in the Department of the Taoiseach, and a beefed-up climate action council. All of those are good in terms of the top-down piece but there is a missed opportunity in the report is in respect of the bottom-up infrastructure, and in other ways as well. The Oireachtas committee report has a chapter on communications and education but that is almost a footnote in the climate action plan. In various ways, the climate action plan replicates our traditional approaches to policymaking in Ireland, which is a shame. However, it is a good start, and something to build on.

Second, I refer back to Deputy Coppinger's question, where we began, on free public transport. It is a promising idea, either completely free or not completely free but certainly much cheaper than public transport is here in Ireland. As Dr. O'Connell said, I was at the EPA conference as well where the mayor of Vienna talked about a cost of €1 a day. That is worth considering. I am glad that the committee will discuss that in the future.

I would raise one note of caution, which picks up the point about justice and the urban-rural dimension to this. Often, in climate policy debates, we hear complaints from rural communities saying it is all very well for us up in Dublin to raise the carbon tax because we have the choice of cycling, walking or taking public transport. My fear with the proposal for free public transport is that it benefits certain parts of the country much more clearly than it benefits others. That is not an argument for not doing it but it is an argument for taking seriously these questions around justice and how we manage those.