Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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This has been a really useful session and a serious eye-opener for me. I sense a level of frustration from a lot of the sectors. The committee's reporting on this needs to reflect that frustration. It appears to me that there is a failure to look at these issues overall in the Department through an emissions reduction lens. That is what we are trying to achieve here. If there are measures that could be brought forward, tangible, implementable measures, they should be brought forward. I thank all the witnesses. I have a final question to Mr. Creegan again. He is taking the brunt of the questions today. This goes back to the point Deputy Ahern made around managing car use in urban areas. We are talking about significantly larger vehicles in urban areas and a real, significant challenge, perhaps in a skill-set in local authorities from an engineering point of view but also the bigger challenge of communication to the public about the reallocation of space in our urban areas. The issue in Ireland is not necessarily car ownership, it is car use and the sustainable use of cars. There is a big need for a public awareness campaign. Separately, there is a significant need for reskilling at local authority level in terms of reallocation of space and communication of the rationale behind taking out, perhaps, five or six car spaces to accommodate a cycle lane. I am talking about smaller towns rather than the big urban centres, where there is a real problem.