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

A shiver ran down my spine this morning. I heard the Taoiseach say the Opposition was jealous because he had €115 billion to spend. I closed my eyes and felt I was 39 years old again and that I was listening to Bertie Ahern who said the same thing when he was Taoiseach in 2002. The Taoiseach went on to say the Opposition had approved the draft plan. I fundamentally disagree. I opposed the draft national planning framework. I agree with Mr. Edgar Morgenroth who is an expert in this area. He was correct in what he said the other day on "Morning Ireland", that it was a recipe for ongoing sprawl. The Government's emphasis is on having motorways everywhere and pretending that that improves urban life, but that is a complete fallacy which it seems the Taoiseach has inherited from the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.

I hear there is no reference in the plan to a DART interconnector. Is that true? Can one possibly make this city work without connecting up the rail lines which we should have done ten years ago, as well as a metro system? In the provisional plan there were no public transport projects in Cork, Galway, Limerick or Waterford. There is no sustainability and the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport does not seem to have a care in the world on that issue.

The key question I have is whether the Government has climate proofed the plan. Can it show and prove to us that it will do something different from what is in the national mitigation plan which the Taoiseach himself said in Strasbourg was not good enough. He said we were a climate change laggard. If the Government was drawing up the national development plan in a climate proofed way, it would be helping the country to move towards a different planning system and doing what it was meant to do, namely, bringing life back to the centre and making it efficient and the country work. I do not hear that but the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.

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