Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister talked about investment and how we need to be doing a lot of these things now rather than later. That is the consensus on the challenges that lie ahead. The Department of Finance published a document last week, titled Future Proofing Public Finances. I read it and much of what is mentioned is about putting things on the long finger. This even includes issues to do with climate change. The document does not speak about investing to ensure there is a proper service from Dublin Airport into the city centre. Nor does it speak about putting in the investment to bring a rail link to Navan, developing the western rail corridor or expanding rail freight. It does not seem to address any of those measures that we all agree are needed quickly. The whole focus of the document is on medium- to long-term investments. The tenor of the document is that the future might be very bad so we need to save all the money we can. I think the future will be very bad unless the investment is made now. I would like to get the Minister's views on this because the thrust of the document is in sharp contrast to the communications I have had with the his Department and others.

Deputy Leddin raised the issue of larger electric vehicles as opposed to smaller ones. People in rural areas favour larger vehicles because they have greater distances to travel and therefore require a larger battery with more range. At present, many people in rural areas still find the range of electric vehicles an issue. Allied to this is the issue of charging the vehicles. Significant investment must be made in the charging station network as quickly as possible. I do not see any sense of urgency on this.

I have spoken to many people in rural areas about this issue and many of them have told me that if they had an electric car for day-to-day use, they would use public transport to go to the cities or on longer journeys. However, public transport is not available in many areas to make this possible. We do not have a good, uncrowded train service or the frequency of trains we need. It comes back to my initial point, that while the Minister seems to be committed to investing in these areas now, I am not sure the Government is.