Mr. Andrew Murphy:

With regard to cycling, I can speak about the changes made in cycling infrastructure over the past year because of the Covid crisis, which has transformed parts of cities. Paris is going in an equal direction as is Amsterdam. This does seem to be the way cities are going. If we want more people to live in the cities we need to make them more liveable. This means reducing a lot of congestion and reducing the amount of air pollution that comes from freight, which is powered by compressed natural gas. It also means looking at the issue of night flights in Dublin airport, which are under consideration, and the impact they will have on people living in these urban areas.

On the point on rolling out rail, we should always analyse various scenarios of what might be beneficial in terms of the climate benefit and the benefit to the Exchequer. As I understand it, Irish Rail has an ambitious plan to expand many suburban connections throughout the country. They need to be pursued as quickly as possible. We also have the need to roll out charging infrastructure as quickly as possible, particularly to decarbonise freight which, as I said, cannot be switched to public transport.

An additional level of investment in expanding rural rail should be examined but we should be prepared to not like the answer much if it comes back that electrification of the car fleet is cheaper. The cost of installing new rail lines is not getting any cheaper, whereas the cost of electric vehicles is. Second, we certainly should not delay the necessary investments in charging infrastructure and suburban rail while we study further development of rail in Ireland.