Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

The capacity of Luas is 80,000 passengers per day and DART capacity has doubled to 90,000 per day. These improvements will clearly reduce emissions. Through technological improvements in vehicles, we will remove almost 500,000 tonnes of emissions. Rebalancing motor taxes and fuel economy labelling will contribute a significant reduction. Existing investment in public transport and new investment under Transport 21 will remove approximately 800,000 tonnes. Use of biofuels as an alternative to petrol and diesel will reduce emissions by 770,000 tonnes.

In the residential area, the combined effect of three previous enhancements of the energy performance requirements of the building regulations will contribute a saving of almost 500,000 tonnes. The highly successful greener homes scheme will also make further reductions. With regard to industry, a target of 3 million tonnes has been set under the ETS. Improved building regulations also apply to the non-residential sector and they will reduce emissions by almost 50,000 tonnes.

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