Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My first question is for Mr. Hogan from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. Regarding the Department's interactions with local authorities that ultimately take many of the planning decisions, and in respect of much of the work with developers and setting out the agenda that will meet the demands or policy objectives that exist, what is his general sense of preparedness and understanding among local authorities? What is the general sense of a commitment to addressing future needs from a climate change perspective in terms of the land use policy? Where public transport is concerned, there is a requirement not just from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport but also very much from the actors or operators that they are buying into. That is important.

My next question is for Mr. Brady of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. The Government is setting out a long-term strategy to be submitted to the Commission about the decarbonisation of Ireland beyond 2030, which works towards our commitment to a 2050 net zero emissions target. That long-term strategy, to the best of my information, is seeking submissions from the public but only 15 days have been given to them to make their views known. That seems a very short timeframe. The final report has to be submitted to the Commission by the end of the year so it will all have to be prepared within approximately nine working days, recognising where we are at in the year now.

The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has looked at BusConnects and increasing rail capacity. That is medium to long term. That is important and ties in with the strategy Mr. Hogan mentioned. Have the officials any other ideas that they can deliver within the next two years that would begin the process? In trying to encourage people to change their behaviour, there is the carrot and the stick. The taxation is the stick. It is a soft enough stick at the moment because of the necessity to take people on that journey and the trajectory of the implementation of the carbon tax. To get people to move to public transport in the kind of numbers that we want and that we will need, we have to incentivise them. The quality of public transport has improved in urban areas but we need to see more in some of our peripheral towns. I get that there is a cost issue but we have to front-load it. We have been very good in this country through successive Governments at responding to infrastructure whether it is water and sewerage, roads, or public transport, usually long after it was needed, to the extent that we see strikes and demonstrations of people wanting their bypass, public transport or sewerage scheme. I get the 2040 plan but we are going to have to front-load projects that show consumers upfront that public transport infrastructure is in place. It is necessary if they are going to change their behaviour, live in a more densely populated area on the edge of a town, and accept that they may not have the same space around the house as they had in the past. Perhaps Ms Hanlon could speak to that a little bit.