Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I have a few questions. I am broadly supportive of the policy intent. In terms of climate and the role of transport, compact growth and transport-led development are concepts that we will hear much more about in future. As such, it is an important policy area.

I wish to discuss some of the barriers encountered to date and the Department's experience. Is it almost the case that the Department has more money than it can spend? Was there a carry-over this year? What has been the experience of spending the money that has been available? Do local authorities have the capacity, culture and organisation to develop and deliver on these projects? Is the planning system fit for purpose and well aligned with these projects? The Minister has spoken about introducing proposals in that regard. Are the NTA, the Department and local authorities sufficiently staffed? While I was a member of a local authority, I saw such projects being delivered but also resistance to them from a various perspectives.

I wish to ask about the challenges in the Irish context. It was mentioned that the Department was developing some ideas that might fit the Irish context. A number of committee members have spoken about our particular spatial distributions and the nature of our settlements, that being, urban, rural and everything in between. As has been mentioned, the services that we currently have are underutilised in many places and do not meet their needs. I can point to specific instances in my constituency where we fought for bus services and, although services were put on, they were not the ones for which we asked. They went to the wrong places from the wrong places and were underused. Where is the Department going with Connecting Ireland and how will it assess what the appropriate service for a place is?

I do not know whether the Department received a copy of the report of the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action. We heard from many witnesses with international experience of making progress on these issues. There is the concept of every village, every hour. I do not know whether that is achievable in the Irish context, but it would improve on the services currently available through Local Link - perhaps Local Link could deliver it - to the point that people could set their clocks by them. Some services are underutilised because they do not meet the needs of the people in those areas. If the Department reconfigured services to meet people's needs, those services would be used. The experience with good public transport is that it is used. We have seen that with Luas and a pile of other transport methods.