Ms Marie Donnelly:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. I will take the questions on safe routes to school and Connecting Ireland together. One of the concerns the council has, to which he has pointed, is that there are plans set out in the climate action plan, for example, but the speed of implementation and impact of the actions foreseen in the plans is very slow. Sometimes that can be understandable. If there is a need to change legislation, that can take time. If a policy is to be changed, for example, it is correct that a public consultation should be carried out so that people are aware of the change and have the opportunity to make their views known. If money is to be spent, the financial rules must be followed. Taking all that into account and accepting it, which we do, nonetheless, the pace of implementation of actions, not just in the transport space but more generally, is such that we are putting ourselves at a disadvantage in achieving our goals. The message the council has given consistently in recent years is that Ireland is good at doing plans and has set them out clearly and we understand the policy and, for the most part, agree with it, but the speed of implementation is too slow. For the two programmes to which the Deputy referred, we need those who are going to benefit to be much more vocal and active in saying they want this and they want it now. That is an area on which I agree with him. First, we need that people understand it is available and, second, to say they want it now. There is a need to get the activity moving faster than before.

As regards ports, the issue has been in newspapers recently. The Deputy is correct that ports will become a significant part of the economy going forward, especially in the energy space. We are looking at offshore wind coming on track on the east coast in the coming years and potentially on the south and west coasts in very large quantities, given the area of sea basin within our national waters. The natural resource is there. Members are probably aware of the North Sea summit that took place earlier this week. Ireland has the potential to be a major battery of energy for the rest of Europe. This will be a very important resource, one that we need to maximise to our benefit but also the benefit of Europe. To do that, we will need ports that can deal with the size of ships and wind turbines, for example, that will be integral to harvesting that natural resource. I visited some of them in Denmark when I was working for the Commission. I saw the offshore wind turbines and the port facilities. In Denmark, for the most part the length of piers in ports had to be at least doubled to take these enormous wind turbines. I was in Killybegs last year and saw a number of wind turbines on the pier. Those turbines are huge but they are small in comparison with the scale of the turbines that are coming down the track. The Deputy is correct. A planned approach to the development of ports is a key issue. It is national infrastructure that we will have to develop to get the benefit of the natural resource we have offshore.

On rail, only a tiny percentage - 2% or 3% - of industrial goods are transported by rail in this country. It is probably the lowest percentage in the European Union. We have a challenge. Can we maximise more the existing rail structure to transport more goods? Part of that is about operational efficiencies. We will have to consider investment in rail for certain hubs where we can benefit from the transport of goods through industrial rail connections to these large ports that will ultimately be developed, for example. We have many challenges right now in rail in terms of the investment. The ports plan needs to be devised now because we need to start and rail will come as an integral part of that as we go forward.