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

I do not disagree, but the outline of the strategy is to avoid the use of vehicles as much as we can, although it is not against people driving. Most of us drive and it is not intended to shame and blame people, but we need a 25% reduction in daily car journeys to meet our targets but also to reduce congestion as well some of the other externalities in health and the use of other resources, such as the pollution that arises from tyre rubber eroding and being washed into the water system and so on. There are many different externalities in this regard. Our entire policy is towards reducing some of those impacts and improving the environment for everyone, including car drivers.

On the nature of our cars, we have made significant changes to try to switch towards lighter and less expensive vehicles with less embodied energy and emissions within them. I do not have the figures in front of me but the changes to the tax code in that regard in recent years are very significant. We are takers of car technology in the sense we do not make cars in this country. The Cathaoirleach is correct to say the statistic is staggering, although I had not heard it and I find it difficult to believe. I would have thought, when I was growing up, that the Volkswagen Passat was a big car, and if 99% of cars nowadays are bigger than that-----