Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I propose to share time with Deputy Seamus Healy.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the critical issue of how we develop our transport system and how we improve our infrastructure, particularly in rural Ireland. I am conscious that this debate follows on from our debate on Bus Éireann and how we invest in it. The reality for any Minister in Government is that hard choices have to be made around what should be prioritised and on what money should be spent. The budget is not limitless and there are constraints on it in terms of education, health, housing and so on.

I fully understand the sentiments of the motion in terms of the need to maintain our roads in a safe condition. The number of pedestrian deaths in the last month alone calls into question the safety of our roads and the need to ensure they are maintained and safe to use. To my mind, we need to invest in the centre of the 600 villages and towns identified in the rural development plan. For example, if we do not invest in a new rural bus service, everybody will have to drive, there will be more cars on our roads and our roads will continue to deteriorate. This will continue the cycle in the direction in which we have been going for about 20 or 30 years now of having a car based system and having to continually increase investment in the road network because there is no public transport alternative.

The Minister mentioned that the allocation for maintenance of our roads as they are is €580 million. The sum of €580 million is not a small, insignificant part of the total capital transport budget. I wish we were spending the same amount on public transport provision this year. In terms of priorities, we have to start investing in public transport. We also have to start investing in technology that encourages people to use alternatives. There is technology on the horizon in terms of automation, car-sharing and other innovative ways of organising transport which may allow us to reduce the volume of traffic on our roads. We need to focus our effort on increasing the volume of people walking, cycling and using public transport. This can be done in the context of the national planning framework and the review of the capital plan to which the motion refers. We have to make the strategic decision to concentrate development as best we can in the villages, towns and cities throughout the country so that they become growing areas of development.

For rural Ireland, it is more important than anything else that our market towns and villages work. This will require decisions to be made on issues such as how we invest in water systems and housing systems, but also in transport. If we want to make rural Ireland work, investment in the public transport alternative should be prioritised because it helps the concentration of development within towns and villages in particular. That is not to suggest that we should not maintain our road network in safe condition. If we continue with the current system such that the road transport budget is three to four times that of the public transport alternative, it will not set us in the right direction. We need to make a radical shift to get more sustainable development, reduce environmental emissions and make rural Ireland and Ireland work as a whole. This will require investment in public transport rather than in our road network. That should come first.

See this speech in context