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

I appreciate what Deputy Smith said about active travel. He is correct about where the people of Ireland are, in particular younger people, but not only that group. I will be honest. My frustration is that we need to go faster. The Government must come out of Covid with the same sense of urgency and speed of delivery that we showed during Covid in three areas: housing, further healthcare reform and climate. The three key aspects of climate to my mind that require immediate acceleration are: retrofit, which we announced yesterday, offshore wind and sustainable mobility. I have been talking to the officials and my colleagues in government about how we can establish teams within Departments and evolving agencies that accelerate delivery. Our job is all about delivery. We have good plans in the climate action plan and the national development plan, but we need to be quick in delivering them and also make sure we get the most for the money we have. The €35 billion we have in transport will not cover all our needs or anything like it. The same is true of the €360 million we have in active travel. While we have had difficulty ramping up spending in the past year or two, very soon we are going to have many more projects ready to go than we have funding for, so we need to get good value for money as well.

Anyone could look at their own example of delays due to a variety of reasons, but I might just take three examples. They are not in any way inclusive. I refer to the likes of what happened in Strand Road in my constituency and the likes of what is happening at the moment in Salthill. I am touching wood thinking surely the good councillors in Galway will see the benefit of having a spectacular seafront facility for their people and for visitors to the city. I might also take an example from Kerry where we have had an issue on the Kerry greenway, which was one of the earliest projects, based on the old railway line to Cahersiveen. There are different aspects to all three examples. I hope some of the concerns will be addressed by the planning reform review the Attorney General is carrying out, for example, on Strand Road. I must be careful. I do not want to question judgments. It is not going against a court decision, but there is a real issue as to whether we sometimes over-apply the likes of the application of the environmental impact assessment, EIA, directive. I do not think many other countries in Europe apply it in some of the ways that we are applying it and I do not think it was designed in that way. Often, projects that would help the environment are being delayed and have to go through hoops that I do not think the original directive was designed for them to go through. I say that without any criticism of any individual decision. I hope the Attorney General's review will help make it a lot clearer and a lot easier, whether one is an objector, a developer or just a citizen who wants the services. That could provide significant certainty. The same applies in the Kerry decision. I hope the court decisions there will help us to get to good agreements with all landowners across the country quickly and not necessarily to gilt-edge everything, but to be able to deliver as many kilometres of network as we can.

When it comes down to it, the decision in Salthill is probably the most immediately interesting one, because a lot of what we need to do will not always be popular. There will be a lot of benefit for people, but if we are to provide a safe space, which is what we need for active travel, it does require taking space, whether that is from car parking or taking a lane out. That is where we need to go more than building out. Building out is expensive and it requires compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, and additional land. Covid gave us the opportunity to free up space because people were not commuting as much. We must use some of that space quickly to provide a safe space, in particular for walking and cycling. Those decisions are political decisions for local councils in particular. I hope councils across the country will see this as an opportunity and they will be willing sometimes to make hard decisions.

With regard to the metro, the exact same thing applies in terms of speed and urgency. Our public procurement process is so long and drawn out that it adds cost to projects. Increasingly, in this current inflationary environment, time is money. I have full confidence in Peter Walsh and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII. I have seen the business case which we are getting ready to go to the Government. It is a very good business case. TII is highly capable. It is probably the best agency in the State in terms of delivering large infrastructure projects. I will be honest. I am not certain that we must have this sequential process where we have two or three years in planning and then two or three years of procurement and then X number of years. What I would be looking to see is if we could not co-ordinate in some way and do some of that work concurrently.