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

No one has a monopoly on the benefits of greenways. Everyone can see those benefits. They are seen in different parts of the country. We need them everywhere. There is an opportunity, urgency and requirement to transform and improve our city in order to save lives and improve emissions reductions, commuting times and leisure facilities and for us to really make a bold statement. To do that, funding allocations need to go beyond €60,000 here and €500,000 there. This needs to be packaged into one big capital project whereby we get high-quality design, certainty around speed of delivery and a real public and international win. People would see our capital start to become a model green city.

I am not saying that we have a monopoly on that. However, I am saying that the Minister has the opportunity and, I believe, the responsibility, particularly as a Deputy representing some of the areas that would benefit from it, to grasp this opportunity to put them together and to show leadership and say that we will do it. I will thank the Minister and commend him just as much as anyone else. However, I do not want to see a continuation of the current system whereby bits and bobs of work are carried out here and there but there is no real clear commitment or big-bang approach. The latter is something which I believe we need. If we did that, it would transform our city and it would transform cycling. It is time to do it. There are many other actions we need to take but this project would shift the entire debate and the sense of where the city is going, which is why I am passionate about it.

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