Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

A shocking report published today by the European Environment Agency states that in Ireland, greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector since 1990 were almost six times higher than the European Union average. This confirms the report last week by the Environmental Protection Agency that ten years after minimal targets were agreed in Kyoto, ten years during which this Government was in power, this country has doubled those emissions. Worryingly, it was not just in the early days of this Government but in 2004, 2005 and 2006 that the increases continued apace, with transport being the biggest contributor, particularly road transport, while emissions from air transport have also drastically increased.

The Environmental Protection Agency puts the increases down to increasing vehicle numbers, larger vehicles, increased reliance on private cars and increasing road freight. It points out that emissions from energy generation in the State are also a factor. Does this not reflect a total failure by the Government in its ten years in power to make any serious effort to implement definitive policies that would drastically cut carbon emissions?

Specifically, the Taoiseach is presiding over the complete winding down of rail freight transport. The Government has failed to transform public transport infrastructure to enable tens of thousands of people in cities and towns, and I include myself, to change from being forced into private transport to taking public transport. The Government has not curbed the crazy situation where airlines are allowed to relentlessly advertise in competition with each other to convince us to go everywhere every second weekend just to blow our noses, while attacking workers' conditions to maximise their profits.

A third of the population lives in Dublin so why do buses from the hugely populated suburbs such as Swords or Ongar still proceed at a snail's pace daily, mired in traffic while meandering like Wanderly Wagon around estates before getting to the city centre, when an efficient system could be implemented, with continuous bus corridors and enough buses that would get people from Clonee to Dublin city in 35 minutes, enabling tens of thousands to transfer to public transport? That is the way forward, why is it not being done in a proactive way?

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