Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up where the Chair left off. I welcome the idea of creating infrastructure as a pull rather than having to be pushed to provide public transport and infrastructure. The Minister will be aware that the committee report we sent to him two years ago called for a reform of the cost-benefit analysis process. One of the problems is that many of the cost-benefit analysis tools we have do not provide for the benefits of smaller projects to be examined and when it comes to areas such as rail, they tend to give a very high weighting to very small time efficiencies that might be saved rather than to issues like future demographics or demand creation. As the Minister states, they tend to underestimate potential usage.

The western rail corridor was very badly impacted by a cost-benefit analysis that did not reflect climate or the idea that the State wants people to start using rail. The Minister will be aware that there is a lot of concern on the part of West on Track that the western rail corridor is part of the TEN-T and part of the new infrastructure. He mentioned the rail lines we already have but there are rail lines that are still there in ghost form in that they have been sought for so long and much of the track is still there. The western rail corridor is part of that. In terms of what the Minister is describing, is there a move towards shifting the way cost-benefit analysis is done and bringing a much stronger lens to that and examining projects, for example, the western rail corridor as sought by West on Track, specifically from that perspective? That is one question.

We have good examples coming through, and we almost do not need many more, but there is a matter of the weighting of how much money gets spent. Deputy Whitmore referred to €28 million being spent on Local Link versus €50 million on EVs. Those are choices. That is another area where the cost-benefit might need to be better examined. We know that Local Link works. The sum of €28 million is frankly an extremely small amount of money for something that we know has an impact. The discussion I had was not about public transport versus congestion. I believe we need to be looking at both measures in regard to road reallocation and scaling up public transport. There was a suggestion that we have a choice. The Minister mentioned that free public transport would cost €540 million and he said it was a choice between investing the €540 million in improving the infrastructure or investing it in free public transport. Meanwhile, we are spending more than €600 million every year on subsidies for jet kerosene. That is a direct subsidy for a fossil fuel through the tax relief measures we are allocating to it. I do not see why we cannot have €540 million to improve the public transport network and €500 million for the introduction of free public transport at the same time. I do not think there is a better way the Minister could spend €1 billion. Will he comment on what the plans are to start rolling back from the fact that we are spending more on jet kerosene than it would cost to have free public transport?