Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

This meeting is confined to a maximum of two hours. I propose that each member be given two minutes to address his or her questions to the witnesses to ensure that all members get an opportunity to put their questions. Is that agreed? Agreed.

While the clerk is noting the order in which members raised their hands, I might direct my questions to our witnesses. I will start with Dr. Sloman. I was very interested to hear at the weekend that a new road linking the N4 motorway to Cardiff Airport is no longer being funded. As I understand it, this is part of the new Welsh transport strategy. I am interested in hearing more about this, although not specifically about that project. There appears to be a major policy shift in Wales and the UK generally away from road building. It is interesting that this is the approach taken. What is also very interesting is that there seems to be cross-party support in the UK for this approach. Dr. Sloman said that the UK Climate Change Committee has recommended that journey demand be reduced by 6%. I would like to hear more about that, and the principle of reducing demand for journeys and not continuing with road projects that have been planned, perhaps for some time. I am also interested in the Scottish approach to achieving a per capitamileage reduction of, I believe, 20%.

In response to Professor McKinnon, I think we all know that rail freight is suited to long distances. Are there payloads that are particularly suited to distances of less than 300 km, as we would have in Ireland? I am also very interested in the point about sharing truck capacity and that a lot of emissions arise from empty trucks driving around. How far gone are we in realising some of the big changes in logistics about which Professor McKinnon spoke?

I was very interested in Dr. Windisch's point about smaller vehicles, e-bikes and cargo bikes. She indicated that these are particularly suited to town and city centres. Could she elaborate on how we might incentivise smaller vehicles versus larger vehicles, why we should do so and if there is international experience in that area? I am very interested in the potential of e-bikes because a cycleable journey now is no longer 2 or 3 km; it is probably up to 15 km. I am very interested in hearing more about that. I ask Dr. Sloman to respond first.