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

The current plans will not do it. They are not ambitious enough and we have not grasped the opportunity that exists. The plans do not reflect the ability and willingness of the Irish to make the leap to a cleaner, sustainable economy. At a meeting of the Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport yesterday, Transport Infrastructure Ireland made a presentation. It is still doing the exact same thing it was doing, namely, trying to tackle Dublin's congestion problems by building a wider ring of motorways around the city.

In the area of forestry, we should be thinking really big. We should be thinking about a massive, native rainforest that would be a store for carbon and part of the Wild Atlantic Way. It would create 30,000 jobs. The Minister should be thinking about an area of 20,000 ha.

On our sea area, we should be going back to Europe saying we will listen to E. O. Wilson, the great biologist, and set aside half our waters for conservation, protection and research on what is happening in the North Atlantic as everything changes. That would be accepted in Europe as reflecting the scale of ambition, leadership and vision required.

It is time to shift our thinking to see this as a bold project where we can lead rather than one in which we are trying to resist change, which is what I sense happening.

See this speech in context