Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Donnelly. It is good to see her again. Deputy O'Rourke did not mention it but he and I were in Amsterdam and Utrecht in the Netherlands at the weekend. We were on a tour with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action to look at cycling infrastructure but also to discuss green hydrogen and the circular economy with stakeholders there. It is a parallel universe over there, as Ms Donnelly will be aware, in terms of what they have done in the past 40 or 50 years. It is important to note that back in the 1970s the Netherlands had a chronic situation with cars on the roads. Approximately 800 children were killed on the roads in the Netherlands in 1972 and that led to a very successful campaign set up by doctors known as Stop Killing Children. It led to a total shift in policy in the Netherlands such that many shorter journeys are now made by bike. I encourage all colleagues to travel to the Netherlands to see how successful it has been in that regard. We can be successful as well. We do not need to wait 40 years; we can learn from the Netherlands.

I refer to the avoid, shift and improve framework.

The report the CCAC commissioned from the OECD that was published in October is a very good report. It stated that at the time Ireland's policy approach was really heavy on the electric vehicle potential and then pushing EVs. It stated that would not work because all that does is to reinforce the car-oriented system of transport that we have. There is a concern there. There are overtures to the avoid, shift, improve framework in the 2023 climate action plan, but we are not properly embracing it. The emissions cuts that would come from the various improved measures are the third priority. Avoid, shift, improve is a hierarchy with avoid the most important, shift the second most important and then improve, which relates to the EV piece. However, 60% of the emissions cuts we would get by 2030 would be on the improve side and so I do not think we are quite there yet. I have a concern that our approach to EVs will reinforce to some extent the car-oriented transport system we have. I would be interested to hear Ms Donnelly's comments on that.

Regarding SUVs, many electric vehicles are SUVs. I found out lately that 99% of all new vehicles sold in this country are larger in terms of their cross-sectional area than the Volkswagen Passat, which was a typical family saloon car back in the 1980s. That is quite staggering. In old photos of any street in the country, the cars look quite dinky when compared with photos from today. They are creating huge problems. We can fit fewer SUVs, which is a problem in itself. There is the safety issue, of course. There is also count against the emissions savings. Even if we are at 80% renewable electricity by 2030, which will be very difficult to achieve, we will still be at 20% fossil fuel-generated electricity, so the 2 tonne vehicle will use much more energy and create more emissions than should be the case. On EV policy, there needs to be a push towards lighter and smaller vehicles. There is nothing in our policy at the moment to push in that direction. I would be interested in Ms Donnelly's views on how we can address that because we will not meet our climate targets if all our EVs are 2 tonne or 2.2 tonne SUVs. That is critical.

Have I more time?