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

I think the Chair is right. I am glad to hear that he got a good sense from the office in Limerick. As I said, I have been visiting local authorities. In addition, I called each of the city and county managers just before the recess and asked them to submit what we are calling pathfinder projects which will accelerate key sustainable mobility projects that could help us to decarbonise, to meet our national planning framework objectives and to make sure that as we come out of Covid and as remote working changes the patterns, we avail of this moment of change to take back some of the public space to create a better public realm now that we are switching from everyone commuting all the time. The letters were in last Wednesday. I have not seen the responses yet but I look forward to seeing what they are pitching in Limerick.

There are a variety of likely projects that will come through. It has to be real now. We have to focus on delivery. I have not seen the detailed design for that Galway route. Senator Pauline O'Reilly will have views but I do think the cross-city route is important. It ticks all those boxes. It creates a better public realm. It will be good for decarbonisation. There is also a fundamental problem in Galway that the east-west cross traffic is unsustainable in the way the city has been developed and designed. The Senator is absolutely right that local authorities have a critical role in the transport sector.

This second issue is not easy because it takes time and is quite a significant change from where we are going, but I say to each local authority when they are doing their development plans that they should look for waste heat. Where is the waste heat? Is there a big heat source? Can we use that for district heating? District heating is going to provide a very significant part of the decarbonisation. Particularly at this time, such high energy prices should focus us to really think long term. The Danes responded to the last oil crisis by accelerating district heating. We need to see strategic changes coming out of this similar crisis, especially with heating bills hitting such high levels. District heating is another element where local authorities could and should have a particular role.

Last but not least, on social housing, the retrofitting of social housing, again in response to the immediate crisis, is something we should look to ramp up. Many of the problems in that regard have been around the availability of contractors. It is very difficult to get workers to do a lot of different projects. That may free up a bit as the economy is impacted by the high energy prices. It is not an easy thing to do, particularly when people are within their existing housing. The more we aggregate and do it at scale, the better.

The prize for local authorities is that we are going to start to see cities and towns across the world doing this. We have the 100 European cities going for zero carbon. I was talking to some European colleagues in recent days, and cities in other European countries are setting real, immediate targets now for 2035, earlier even in some instances, to decarbonise. Cities and towns that do that will benefit. There will be benefits in terms of better health outcomes and lower fossil fuel bills. They will be the towns and cities people will want to locate to and invest in. This has to be central to the local authorities in their entire thinking. We have provided additional resources recently. We have committed to additional staff to help them plan this. It has to be for those who are planning and thinking big. That is where the legislation includes them and their role. It is about delivering on the ground now and they are the pinch point for that delivery in many instances.