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

That is why you have to have the alternative. Prior to this Government, that scale of investment in rural bus transport was not there. It had been in decline for decades. As the OECD said, we had, by design, created a car-centric system. That is changing. We are investing very significantly in rural public transport and having that alternative will make a huge difference.

For those who do have to drive, I believe the benefits of electric vehicles will be felt there first. One of the real challenges we have in urban areas is how people charge the car if they do not have a driveway.

This is much less of a problem in rural Ireland where many houses are one-off houses on their own in the country. There we do not have a challenge with how to charge the vehicles. This makes it much easier to get high levels of deployment of electric vehicles. I understand when people say they are still expensive. They are but they are coming down in price. In the very near future we can expect pretty much all car manufacturers to have an electric offering. This would be as beneficial to rural Ireland, if not more beneficial, because many people in urban Ireland will have the frustrating experience that they can charge at home. In rural Ireland this will be a lot less of a problem. This is one of the ways we can switch away from fossil fuels.