Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

On sustainable transport, I believe there is a parallel here from two years ago when Covid arrived. The Minister's predecessor, Shane Ross, in one of his last acts as Minister introduced emergency legislation to facilitate the roll-out of active travel infrastructure in particular. We are in a similar situation now. Does the Minister, Deputy Ryan, believe there is merit in an emergency response? Obviously, we will try to increase the level of active travel development in the next few years. Ireland has an ambitious programme in that regard. There is, however, an acute crisis now right now with regard to energy.

Facilitating active travel is certainly one of the solutions. If we can develop active travel networks quickly using light infrastructure in all our towns and cities, we can make people far less dependent on driving and on expensive fossil fuels.