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

I will be brief because I am conscious of the time. I absolutely agree with the Deputy. The next government is a manifesto issue, as we talked about earlier. The 10% commitment to active travel is critical and key because we have now set up the systems which are coming through with good-quality designs. We need to pick the ones that can be deliverable and support the councils that are willing to take the hard decisions and go ahead. There has to be that budget to back them. We are really starting to see the possibilities here. Failing to keep that up would be a terrible missed opportunity. Similarly, the 2:1 ratio in the remaining budget towards public transport versus roads is not anti-roads. As I said, for safety and a whole range of other reasons, we need to spend, but we have so many public transport projects coming. We have the €1 billion a year. We know we need to invest to deliver on the strategic rail review. If you do not have that scale of funding, you are basically saying we are going down the path of a car-dominated system. That will result only in gridlock. It will be very expensive in other ways. That is a critical decision.

On battery electric trains, the Deputy is right. As an example, I will be very local now in his case. I believe that the extension to Wicklow of the DART system makes real sense. I go back to what I said earlier about the national investment framework for transport in Ireland, NIFTI. We are using an existing line. Those battery electric trains mean that we do not have to electrify the full system. We can make that extension, using the existing assets really well. It is, by my understanding, a relatively low-cost installation of power connection at Wicklow station. The biggest issue is the grid. My understanding is that Wicklow station is very well placed to enhance the grid and to charge the batteries when the train is there. We could look at the option some have mentioned of switching over from Wexford services there to enhance and improve connectivity. That is a really good example.

To go back to one of the main points I am making, we also need to send some of the battery electric trains down to Cork. It is really important for Cork metropolitan rail that when we open up new stations in the likes of Blackpool, Monard, Blarney, Tivoli and so on, the service should be world-class and first placed to put the best trains in as a signal of intent for Cork, as well as Dublin.