Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the witnesses. This has been an enjoyable session and I appreciate their time. My first question is for Dr. Sloman. There is a misconception that if we put enough money and time into this modal shift, we can keep going along the same mode at the exact same time. In that context, I appreciate all of Dr. Sloman's comments. Is it her contention that we will be unable to do both because we will not have the money or is it because the targets are so difficult to meet that we do not have the time to do both?

There was mention of remote working. Wales is setting an ambitious target of 30% in respect of remote working. Dr. Sloman has spoken about moving investment from roads into broadband. Are there smaller ways in which we could try to prepare? We are, obviously, rolling out broadband and we have put significant investment into that. Are there other ideas that could help us with that move to remote working because it could be transformative for Ireland?

Dr. Windisch mentioned the 15-minute city. There is another misconception that the 15-minute city means as the crow flies when one can be in a 15-minute city but it can take half an hour to get around it if there are barriers in place. Some of those barriers are actually very cheap to remove. Do our guests have some ideas on that? I am thinking, for instance, that children sometimes cycle for kilometres to a destination when they could just nip over a wall if they did not have a bike with them. What about permeability, kissing gates or any other ideas like that? Is there low-hanging fruit that would get us to those targets? What is Dr. Windisch's opinion on road building and how it can take us away from that 15-minute city, never to return, because of the kind of planning that is set in motion? She also mentioned the forthcoming report that suggests that if 20% of car users in the Dublin area shifted to shared mobility, 40% less street space would be required. There is an argument that if we build more roads we can move people out of the space and then leave the space for people to cycle and walk on, and use public transport. That seems intuitively incorrect. What is Dr. Windisch's opinion on whether that is the correct way to go about things and put our transport plans together?

I also have a question about freight for Professor McKinnon. We are trying balance our climate ambitions and regional development. That regional development would mean that people would not have to travel as far to work and so on if we can build up industry in, for example, the north west. We have decommissioned rail lines that could be used for freight. An alternative to regional development may be that we would have to develop our road structures further. The options are a rail line, developing roads further or not developing in those areas at all. The professor mentioned that moving to rail may not be commercially viable. Has he looked at that commercial viability for an entire community or region, also taking into consideration governmental investment as opposed to investments by individual companies in rail freight?