Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

We should be heading towards 13% above the 1990 limit but we are at 25% and it is increasing as we speak. Government policy has failed.

I will refer to the excellent work done in the recent report published by Urban Forum. There is an increasing suburbanisation in Ireland and more and more people live outside our cities. The population in Cork and Limerick declined by 3.2% and 2.7% respectively while their county areas grew. The area directly outside Cork city grew by 11.4% and the area outside Limerick city by over 8%. While more people live near our cities the population within the cities is actually falling and our urban sprawl is now worse than Los Angeles. The footprint of Dublin city is equal to that of Los Angeles but with a population a third the size. Part of that is because of increasing reliance on motor cars, rather than public transport. We are becoming a very car-dependent country. The Urban Forum report stated:

One of the consequences of Ireland's 'suburbanisation' is the reality that for many 'city' dwellers, they are as car dependent as their rural neighbours. The average car in Ireland travels, on an annual basis, 24,400 km per year — 70% more than France or Germany, 50% more than Britain — and even 30% more than the USA.

The price of this rapid economic success and our fast increasing use of cars is that Ireland has become the fifth most oil-dependent country in the EU and the ninth in the world. This is taking place at a time when oil is becoming an ever-scarcer resource.

While we have made great economic progress, we are burning up more fossil fuels by the way we live and through the Government failing to manage our population movements and our carbon footprints. The Government is condemned for not dealing with the issue by failing to have proper planning and development and not doing enough to encourage public transport. While I acknowledge improvements have been made in public transport, they have been inadequate. The Government stands condemned on its lack of attention to this issue.

I gave an example last night which I will repeat. When Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats took office in 1997 we had no motorway between Drogheda and Dublin, and the Balbriggan bypass did not exist. However, I could drive from my home in Drogheda to Leinster House during peak times in approximately an hour. Now it takes at least an hour and a half and sometimes up to two hours when using my car, as I often need to do given other commitments I may have. There are no park and ride facilities as one approaches the city from the north side. There is no Government joined-up thinking on the issue. We have no integrated policy whereby people who need to use their cars to get close to the city could then take public transport. The Government has failed utterly in meeting the needs of the population by reducing the numbers stuck in traffic every day. Despite some improvements with the opening of the Dublin port tunnel, once past the tunnel entrance drivers have the same problem again. People recently told me they were more than half an hour in Gardiner Street.

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