Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I think it is true that it takes too long. O'Devaney Gardens is one example. That is in the housing area but it has taken 17 years. The metro has taken 23 years, at least, from when I saw it as a fairly advanced project. BusConnects in my constituency in Dublin has been five years in consultation. We need to speed up the delivery of projects because the public get rightly angry at the uncertainty around that.

Planning is one element of this and the planning review by the Attorney General that the Deputy referred to is important. His assessment and that of a number of people is that the Planning and Development Act 2000, while well intended at the start, has been amended so often that it is difficult to assess the law. It is so complicated.

One of the reasons we have so many judicial reviews is that planning is so complex and people can query facets. That is deeply frustrating for all concerned, be it those interested in developing a project or those opposing it. That very critical fundamental review will be central. Included in that, we need to look at the regulations with regard to the likes of environmental impact assessments and when we need those. We need to be really clear in terms of what the regulations are in order that clarity is brought. That is one element of the acceleration we will need.

A second element will be important in the lifetime of the Government. We have three remaining years in government, all going well. That three-year timeframe brings us to 2025, halfway through this critical decade for meeting the challenge of climate change. I have said to my officials that, in working with the agencies, we now need to accelerate progress in the area of sustainable mobility and support investments that support our climate action plan and national planning framework objectives.

Transport will be the hardest area in meeting our climate targets. Everyone believes agriculture is the hardest area but I believe transport is the hardest. There are certain areas, such as haulage, where it is very difficult to get solutions. In other areas, we have embedded a dispersed population model, which requires people to have very long commutes and promotes private car use rather than other more sustainable modes. In truth, the NIFTI is based on a national planning framework. My assessment is to ask whether we are delivering on the objectives of the national planning framework. If I were to summarise and reduce this to key areas, it is primarily centred on better balanced regional development, compact development and low-carbon development.

We are not delivering better balanced regional development. According to the latest analysis, 74% of new housing is in the greater Dublin, eastern and midlands regional area. Counties Meath, Kildare and Fingal are booming and going beyond meeting targets but Dublin city is not. In truth, it seems that in the rest of the country we are not delivering better balanced regional development. We need to make an urgent change to start seeing development in counties Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick and towns and villages around the country.

Second, in terms of compact development, again, while we are seeing many planning approvals for apartments and other developments in the city centres, they are not moving to activation. Most of the development is still occurring in a further dispersed development model. We are not delivering compact development. We have an urgent need, particularly coming out of Covid-19, to bring life back into the centres of our cities. We should use this moment, in Covid, when we do not have so much commuter traffic. We should not allow that to return but instead try to get space to improve the local environment and make it attractive to live in the centre of a town, village or city and thereby meet our second objective.

Third, in terms of the climate side, as I said, all the modelling is showing that even with all the electric vehicles we may deliver and all the public transport projects that are in the plans, they will not, on their own, deliver the level of emissions reduction we need to achieve. For this reason, we need to do more faster. That applies in particular to sustainable mobility. On Monday last, we announced funding for every county, town and city in the country to improve the local environment and sustainable mobility. One simple example is that when I was young 20% of children were driven to school, whereas now that figure is 60%. Could we reverse that? That would be good for parents and everyone else because there would be less traffic at rush hour. It would be good for health and emissions. That is one example of how we need to change.

The NIFTI helps us and gives guidance. It states that we should promote active travel first, if we can, and use existing assets rather than always building new because the latter is very expensive and takes time. That is a useful part of the overall jigsaw. My job, more than anything else, is to advance the acceleration of real projects in the next three years. That includes roads projects.

Deputy Lowry has spoken to me many times about Tipperary town. This is an example of where some roads investment can support sustainable mobility and remove traffic from the centres of towns. Some 30% of retail in Tipperary town is not open. The figure in Dublin city centre is not too far off that. I do not know if anyone has done a survey. We need to urgently restore the high street. We do that by removing as much traffic as we can and bringing life back into the centre of our towns and cities. We need to do that quickly in the next three years.