Michael Fitzpatrick (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

On the Continent, a driver of a battery operated vehicle can pull in and recharge it in a matter of a few minutes or have it replaced and move on. I welcome the focus in this Bill on the environment and CO2 emissions. It is important that we highlight these issues at this time.

In our capital city of Dublin we have a large public transport fleet along with other transport fleets. I do not hear a word from any of these large fleet operators on their commitment to reducing CO2 emissions. They should be called before Oireachtas committees to discuss this issue to see how working together we can encourage large fleet owners, in particular the large bus transport operators, to reduce their CO2emissions.

With regard to privately owned vehicles, where families have more than one vehicle we should try to encourage them to have a battery operated vehicle as their second or third car. These vehicles are used for short runs such as going to school, the church or shopping. It would be a start in achieving our objective if we could encourage families to have at least one of their vehicles battery operated.

I welcome the ring-fencing of the funds for local authorities. I hope we can encourage local authorities to ensure proper supervision of public funds and to get the best possible value for all the money spent, particularly with regard to road maintenance and road improvements.

In recent years, County Kildare has seen high-quality motorways going through the county and linking our major towns. We also have high-quality maintenance of our minor roads. The Government has made a commitment to local authorities to ensure adequate funding is provided. However, local authorities never have enough and I hope that when this little recession has passed we can continue to upgrade our roads as we have done in the past.

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