Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their attendance and submissions in advance. National and international objectives are to reduce CO2 emissions by 51% and onwards then towards carbon neutrality. That requires us to look at things we have done in the past in a completely different way. That includes transport and ways we might have looked at things in 2015 and decisions that were made then. We have agreed to that and it is in the programme for Government. Many governments throughout Europe have agreed to and are following the science on that. The Department of Transport should be no different. How do the Department officials compare the cost-benefit analysis of a rail project with a road project?

By this I mean the carbon calculated for the production or construction of the project plus the carbon output that would be locked in by its construction and the carbon emissions over the lifetime of the project. It would mean a comparison between pouring hundreds of kilometres of tarmac and new concrete as against investment in a rail project, increasing rail frequency on an existing rail line or reopening a rail line that may have been closed in the past.