Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Those were very interesting contributions. Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan said earlier that if he stood up in the Dáil and called for the reinstatement of the west Cork railway, he would be scoffed at. I would applaud him because I think that is the future, particularly for long-term planning and freight. We have so many trucks on our roads - dirty, big, smelly and dangerous vehicles that go up and down our roads all the time. Back in the day, everything from coal to Guinness was transported on trains but we hardly use them for freight today. We must think about this. As one of the witnesses noted, we should look at financing freight and transport by railway and price and study it. This is really important. I do not think we should frame this as a question of whether railway is better than electric cars. That is the wrong way to go because what we are looking at here is not just managing costs but the price we will pay if we do not get it right in terms of climate chaos. Having to produce loads of cars at the other end of the planet regardless of whether they are made in Germany or Japan will not be good for the climate so the less of that kind of big machinery we produce, the better.

My next question concerns something I am passionate about, namely, free frequent public transport. It has been introduced in Luxembourg and Melbourne in Australia and, to a lesser degree, in parts of the Netherlands. I think it is coming up on a year since it was introduced in Luxembourg and studies are showing that it has taken a significant number of cars off the roads. Since public transport is free and frequent and people can use it conveniently, they use it both with their bicycles and when they are walking. They get on and off it. This is removing cars from the roads. To come back to cost, whatever we would pay to introduce that would be worth it given the outcome. I would like to hear the witnesses' views on that.