Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Rourke. I am going to take a little bit of time at this stage. The Minister has touched on a lot of issues and we have covered quite a lot. He referenced planning in his opening statement. We need to examine the concept of where we are building everything from our houses and dwellings to jobs. I recall at one stage being on the regional authority and being told that County Meath had the worst houses to jobs ratio in the country - no offence to Deputy O'Rourke - and they were looking to build more houses. How are we doing in making sure that people's living and working spaces are near each other? That does not just have a benefit in terms of emissions but also has a huge benefit for quality of life due to not having to spend hours a day commuting, regardless of how people are getting from one place to the other. We should give people those jobs in counties such as Leitrim, Sligo and Meath where people end up quite often having to travel long distances to work.

Remote working is helpful in that regard and the broadband roll-out is good. I heard this comment from somebody involved with commercial property. They said that in terms of transport emissions, Covid was great but instead of having 1,000 people in an office building, we now have 1,000 people trying to heat their homes individually all day. Transport emissions are down but perhaps home heating emissions or emissions from that kind of thing are up. Obviously, retrofitting and so on is important but there is often a difficulty in getting people to do the retrofitting, finding people to install solar panels and wrap houses and so on.

I did my bit today. I cycled in today, as I do most days, trying to cut my journey time but that is not for everybody and people of certain ages cannot do it. Maybe we should consider giving everybody a bike when they enter secondary school. We could lend them a bike to try if they do not already have a bike. Not everybody would have a bike. Maybe we could monitor the bikes and track them to see if they are being used. If the bike is being used every day to go to and from school, let people have it for free, and if it is not being used, we could get it back and give it to someone who will use it. We really need to get as many people as we can out of their cars as often as possible.

There are targets for reducing vehicle kilometres, a 50% reduction in fossil fuel usage and accelerating the fleet transition but the point the Minister made about electric cars is correct. The streets will be full of quieter, less emitting, less noisy and less hot vehicles but they are still going to be full of electric cars. Bicycles are a huge advantage, particularly in urban areas. I do not expect people to be cycling long distances such as the length of the M50, even though I do know some people who do it, or cycling from Blanchardstown to Bray or something. However, there are an awful lot of journeys that people can do but they just do not have the mindset. I did not cycle for 20 years but I started doing it ten years ago when I was on the local authority. Now I use the bike more often than I use my car, which sits in the driveway a lot of the time doing very little.

The Minister made a point about not scrapping cars. My car is relatively old. It passes its NCT every year but there would be a cost to me not being able to use a petrol car. I would have to get a new car and all the energy involved in that is probably counterproductive if it is going to sit in my driveway 98% or 99% of the time.

It is really about how we affect people's mindset. The public transport stuff - the 90-minute fare and the €2 fare - is great. We need to accelerate credit card usage because not everybody has a Leap card and people should be able to tap on with their phone or credit card without a Leap card as people can do in London, Sydney and other cities. I am thinking in particular of people who do not use public transport that much. Such people may not have a Leap card or may not consider getting one. How do we achieve the modal shift the Minister is looking for? We can build all the cycle lanes we want but how do we get people out of their cars and how do we get young people, in particular, out of their parents' cars so they are not driven everywhere? It would be positive for their own independence if we had safe streets and better planning systems so that houses are closer to schools or people's workplaces. That is my ask.