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

I appreciate the Deputy's kind words at the start. It is important that we do not give people a sense that it is not possible; real change is possible on decarbonising. While we do not yet have the final figures my estimate is that we will see at least a 5% reduction in emissions last year, which is what we were planning for. It is slightly ahead of what the Climate Advisory Council set so it is not impossible. It has not been the experience in transport, where we expect that there will possibly be a 1% or 2% increase. Other sectors are reducing more so that is why there is an overall reduction of 5%, we think. The final figures are yet to come out but there is real change happening. We will meet our target of 195,000 for the number of electric vehicles by 2025. We are delivering on the switch to biofuels as another measure to reduce emissions. A 25% reduction in public transport fares last year is not insignificant. That is huge and unprecedented. Our planning system has been particularly slow in approving projects but we are starting to see things like BusConnects projects being about to be delivered and the active travel teams across the country starting to work. We can change; the ship is turning.

On the EV charging infrastructure, I agree with the Deputy that the local authority scheme we had was not working. It was insufficient. It was not generous enough to get the local authorities over the line to make the investments. I am disappointed to hear about that charging station in Finglas. It may be that Dublin City Council does not seem to be putting its shoulder to the wheel on it which it needs to. That may be resolved because we are going to go bigger on that. The Deputy's fundamental premise is one I agree with. It is not just about replacing one fleet of 1.5 million cars, or whatever we have, with EVs. It does have to move towards a much more efficient car-sharing system as well as car ownership. The benefits of that are reduced parking needs, significant savings for households and the ability to put in charging infrastructure in locations where that might be difficult by using a car-sharing model. There is also the environmental benefit. The environmental costs of production of the car are very significant for it to lie idle 95% of the time so there is a huge shift. We will have public consultation on shared mobility strategy next month. I hope that in the next few weeks I will be able to approve or to start the process of taking the example in Finglas and going far larger. We are looking at 200 shared mobility hubs. We are likely looking at two of the cities and one large town as the first places to roll them out. It is a combination of e-bike and e-car sharing.