Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The people living in these places have no public transport. They have no park-and-ride facilities, other than on the south side of Dublin, at locations where they can leave the car and easily get to work on a train. If one wants to save the planet one must first provide a mechanism for people to change behaviour. One does this by investing in public transport. If nothing else, this budget reinstates the primacy of roads. The indications are that we will pay from €700 million up to €900 million over the next five years because of Kyoto Protocol commitments. I would have welcomed more initiatives in the budget to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and make our contribution to reduce global warming.

This budget is about Fianna Fáil hubris. Like Icarus, that party flew too close to the sun, claimed they could do everything and now, unfortunately, we are the people on top of which they have crash landed.

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