Mr. Finlay Thomson:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and the Chair and all the members who came out today on this bank holiday weekend to give their much-needed attention and time to these pressing issues. I am 16 and from Foróige in rural Donegal, and what I would like to speak about is rural transport. Coming from a rural background, this is something close to my heart and I hope the committee takes on board my suggestions.

I would like all the members to think about how they got here today. I am sure a good many took their cars, while some probably took public transport, and maybe even one or two walked. For me, though, the only possible way to get here today was to take a plane. It was not something I wanted to do. I am well aware that the carbon footprint I just created is quite high. Yet this is a constant problem that those in rural Ireland face, where we have no other option and no other means of sustainable transport. We always seem to be forced to take the most inefficient routes, the long way round, if you will.

Rural Ireland has been faced with having an increasing rate of little to no access to public transport. I know a farmer who lives beside me, and for the past 50 years he has relied on public transport to get to mass, to get his shopping and to do basic tasks. With the level of public transport available now, his best option is to phone a neighbour with a car to get his shopping. The priest comes round every so often to pray with him. This man is completely stuck in this situation of being isolated with no public transport. Right here is a prime example of the problem rural Ireland is facing. We are effectively in the Stone Age in terms of our transport systems. We do not want people to hear stories like that and then to run a mile from rural Ireland. We want to make rural areas accessible for people to come and visit or to settle in.

Things like student Leap cards and student travel cards on trains and buses as incentives for young people to use public transport at cheaper rates are fantastic initiatives, but they are completely ineffective in rural Ireland. Let me explain why. When booking a train to come back from Dublin to Sligo, I was told by my friend to remember to use my student card on the train. I had to actually ask that person to explain what a student card was and how I could go about getting one. I realised, because my friend was someone who used public transport a lot, that the incentive of a cheaper ticket was much higher in that person's case, compared with me using a train in Ireland for the first time. Recently, public transport fares have been reduced for the first time in 75 years. This is an amazing initiative, but we cannot wait another 75 years for major change.

The possibility of a carbon tax could greatly help incentivise the use of more public transport. If rural Ireland remains car-centric, though, rising fuel prices will cause the carbon tax to be completely disproportionate to the rest of Ireland. If there is no other option but to use carbon-emitting transport daily, then the whole point of the carbon tax is lost. We need developed transport systems that run inter-county as well as intra-county, and not just to Dublin and back. We need this to incentivise people in respect of the benefits of public transport and show why they should take it. We cannot just look at electric cars to solve our problems for us either. An electric car must be driven for six years before it is carbon neutral. Electric cars are a stop-gap measure, one far from being ready to solve our sustainable transport crisis. Until we can meet the requests for a proper infrastructure of charging points, so they can be used in rural settings, and also not in a context of harmfully extracting more materials from the ground, then electric cars are not yet a sustainable option.

Our suggestions for the committee are to bring Ireland into the 21st century in public transport systems right across our nation. We want to see a developed infrastructure of public transport right across the board, with an emphasis on train systems in rural counties such as Donegal. Inter-county, as well as intra-county, rail travel is something near and dear to our hearts in the Ecollective. We all love our capital city, but I want to be able to visit my friend here, Orna, down in Cork at some stage and there is no sustainable way of doing that now. One hundred years ago, there were more trains, more train stations and more routes in Ireland than today. We must look to the past and learn from it to better our future.

Rural Ireland is not the only place that needs improvement. The pedestrianisation and implementation of a congestion tax in cities like Dublin is necessary. A congestion tax would be an incentive for people in the city to use public transport and to balance the impact of the carbon tax on rural Ireland.

This would free up the city and present the opportunity for it to be pedestrianised properly as well as generate some short-term funding. Other options, such as hydrogen cars, could lead to a suitable alternative to electric cars. They could solve some of the problems posed by electric cars in rural Ireland. On top of everything the transition between our normal everyday cars to hydrogen ones would be extremely straightforward. Refuelling them would just be like fuelling a normal petrol car but putting in hydrogen instead of petrol. Implementation in rural areas would be easy as the infrastructure of filling stations is already in place and just needs to be converted to supply hydrogen. Hydrogen modes of transport could also have other applications such as hydrogen trains or buses. Hydrogen would make trains more sustainable modes of transport. The capabilities of hydrogen for transport are limitless and provide some great alternatives to electric and fossil fuels.

My final recommendation to the committee is to increase the funding that goes towards the transport sector. The Department of Finance's expenditure data states that transport has been one of the two lowest funded sectors since 2011. In 2020 motor tax revenues in Ireland generated €6.2 billion according to The Irish Times. That same year only €2.68 billion was funded to the transport sector. This proves that transport is not regarded as a worthy enough sector to receive substantial funding which it clearly needs.

All the suggestions that I have made here today will require funding. Saying that there is a lack of funding for the transport sector is a worn-out excuse. The lack of rural transport in Ireland will only decrease further if something is not done about it. The decline of rural Ireland itself becomes even more pronounced as young people are increasingly isolated which invariably forces them to migrate to urban areas. I hope for future generations that we realise the tragedy of rural transport and the effect that it has on our nation. I also realise we are making progress with meetings such as this, today, with everyone who has attended listening.